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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 
THE 

MORAL INSTRUCTION 
OF CHILDREIsT 



BY 

FELIX ABLER 



: SilF 19 ; 

NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1893 






Copyright, 1892, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



Electrotyped and Printeo. 
at the appleton press, u. s. a. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



Moral education is everywhere acknowledged 
to be the most important part of all education ; but 
there has not been the same agreement in regard to 
the best means of securing it in the school. This 
has been due in part to a want of insight into the two- 
fold nature of this sort of education ; for instruction 
in morals includes two things : the formation of right 
ideas and the formation of right habits. Right 
ideas are necessary to guide the will, but right 
habits are the product of the will itself. 

It is possible to have right ideas to some extent 
without the corresponding moral habits. On this 
account the formation of correct habits has been 
esteemed by some to be the chief thing. But un- 
conscious habits — mere use and wont — do not seem 
to deserve the title of moral in its highest sense. 
The moral act should be a considerate one, and rest 
on the adoption of principles to guide one's actions. 

To those who lay stress on the practical side and 
demand the formation of correct habits, the school 
as it is seems to be a great ethical instrumentality. 
To those who see in theoretical instruction the only 

(V) 



vi MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

true basis of moral character, the existing school 
methods seem sadly deficient. 

The school as it is looks first after its discipline, 
and next after its instruction. Discipline concerns 
the behavior, and instruction concerns the intellect- 
ual progress of the pupil. That part of moral edu- 
cation which relates to habits of good behavior is 
much better provided for in the school than any 
part of intellectual education. 

There is, however, a conflict here between old 
and new ideals. The old-fashioned school regarded 
obedience to authority the one essential ; the new 
ideal regards insight into the reasonableness of 
moral commands the chief end. It is said, with 
truth, that a habit of unreasoning obedience does 
not fit one for the exigencies of modern life, with its 
partisan appeals to the individual and its perpetual 
display of grounds and reasons, specious and other- 
wise, in the newspapers. The unreasoning obedi- 
ence to a moral guide in school may become in after 
life unreasoning obedience to a demagogue or to a 
leader in crime. 

It is not obedience to external authority that we 
need so much as enlightened moral sense, and yet 
there remains and will remain much good in the 
old-fashioned habit of implicit obedience. 

The new education aims at building up self-con- 
trol and individual insight. It substitutes the inter- 
nal authority of conscience for the external authority 
of the master. It claims by this to educate the citi- 
zen fitted for the exercise of suffrage in a free gov- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. yii 

ernment. He will weigli political and social ques- 
tions in his mind, and decide for himself. He will 
be apt to reject the scheme of the demagogue. 
"While the old-fashioned school-master relied on the 
rod to sustain his external authority, he produced, it 
is said, a reaction against all authority in the minds 
of strong-willed pupils. The new education saves 
the strong-willed pnpil from this tension against 
constituted authority, and makes him law-abiding 
from the beginning. 

It will be admitted that the school under both 
its forms — old as well as new — secures in the main 
the formation of the cardinal moral habits. It is 
obliged to insist on regularity, punctuality, silence, 
and industry as indispensable for the performance of 
its school tasks. A private tutor may permit his 
charge to neglect all these things, and yet secure 
some progress in studies carried on by fits and 
starts, with noise and zeal to-day, followed by in- 
dolence to-morrow. But a school, on account of its 
numbers, must insist on the semi-mechanical virtues 
of regularity, punctuality, silence, and industry. 
Although these are semi-mechanical in their nature, 
for with much practice they become unconscious 
habits, yet they furnish the very ground-work of all 
combinations of man with his fellow-men. They are 
fundamental conditions of social life. The increase 
of city population, consequent on the growth of 
productive industry and the substitution of machines 
for hand labor, renders necessary the universal preva- 
lence of these cardinal virtues of the school. 



viii MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

Even the management of machines requires that 
sort of alertness which comes from regularity and 
punctuality. The travel on the railroad, the man- 
agement of steam-engines, the necessities of con- 
certed action, require punctuality and rhythmic 
action. 

The school habit of silence means considerate 
regard for the rights of fellow-workmen. They 
must not be interfered with ; their attention must 
not be distracted from their several tasks. A ra- 
tional self-restraint grows out of this school habit — 
rational, because it rests on considerateness for the 
work of others. This is a great lesson in co-opera- 
tion. Morals in their essence deal with the relation 
of man to his fellow-men, and rest on a considerate- 
ness for the rights of others. " Do unto others," 
etc., sums up the moral code. 

Industry, likewise, takes a high rank as a citi- 
zen's virtue. By it man learns to re-enforce the 
moments by the hours, and the days by the years. 
He learns how the puny individual can conquer 
great obstacles. The school demands of the youth 
a difficult kind of industry. He must think and 
remember, giving close and unremitting attention 
to subjects strange and far off from his daily life. 
He must do this in order to discover eventually that 
these strange and far-off matters are connected in a 
close manner to his own history and destiny. 

There is another phase of the pupil's industry 
that has an important bearing on morals. All his 
intellectual work in the class has to do with critical 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix 

accuracy, and respect for the truth. Loose state- 
ments and careless logical inference meet with 
severe reproof. 

Finally, there is an enforced politeness and court- 
esy toward teachers and fellow-pupils — at least to 
the extent of preventing quarrels. This is directly 
tributary to the highest of virtues, namely, kindness 
and generosity. 

All these moral phases mentioned have to do 
with the side of school discipline rather than in- 
struction, and they do not necessarily have any bear- 
ing on the theory of morals or on ethical philosophy, 
except in the fact that they make a very strong im- 
pression on the mind of the youth, and cause him to 
feel that he is a member of a moral order. He 
learns that moral demands are far more stern than 
the demands of the body for food or drink or re- 
pose. The school thus does much to change the 
pupil from a natural being to a spiritual being. 
Physical nature becomes subordinated to the inter- 
ests of human nature. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the school is so 
efficient as a means of training in moral habits, it is 
as yet only a small influence in the realm of moral 
theory. Even our colleges and universities, it must 
be confessed, do little in this respect, although there 
has been of late an effort to increase in the pro- 
grammes the amount of time devoted to ethical study. 
The cause of this is the divorce of moral theory from 
theology. All was easy so long as ethics was direct- 
ly associated with the prevailing religious confes- 



X MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

sion. The separation of Church and State, slow- 
ly progressing everywhere since the middle ages, 
has at length touched the question of education. 

The attempt to find an independent basis for 
ethics in the science of sociology has developed 
conflicting systems. The college student is rarely 
strengthened in his faith in moral theories by his 
theoretic study. Too often his faith is sapped. 
Those who master a spiritual philosophy are 
strengthened ; the many who drift toward a so- 
called " scientific " basis are led to weaken their moral 
convictions to the standpoint of fashion, or custom, 
or utility. 

Meanwhile the demand of the age to separate 
Church from State becomes more and more exact- 
ing. Religious instruction has almost entirely 
ceased in the public schools, and it is rapidly disap- 
pearing from the programmes of colleges and pre- 
paratory schools, and few academies are now scenes 
of religious revival, as once was common. 

The publishers of this series are glad, therefore, 
to ofEer a book so timely and full of helpful sugges- 
tions as this of Mr. Adler. It is hoped that it 
may open for many teachers a new road to theoretic 
instruction in morality, and at the same time re- 
enforce the study of literature in our schools. 

W. T. Harris. 
Washington, D. C, July, 1892. 



PEEFATORY NOTE. 



The following lectures were delivered in the 
School of Applied Ethics during its first session in 
1891, at Plymouth, Mass. A few of the lectures 
have been condensed, in order to bring more clearly 
into view the logical scheme which underlies the 
plan of instruction here outlined. The others are 
published substantially as delivered. 

I am deeply conscious of the difficulties of the 
problem which I have ventured to approach, and 
realize that any contribution toward its solution, at 
the present time, must be most imperfect. I should, 
for my part, have preferred to wait longer before 
submitting my thought to teachers and parents. 
But I have been persuaded that even in its present 
shape it may be of some use. I earnestly hope 
that, at all events, it may serve to help on the rising 
tide of interest in moral education, and may stimu- 
late to further inquiry. 

Felix Adlee. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. 

PAGE 

I. The Problem of Unsectarian Moral Instruction . 3 

II. The Efficient Motives of Good Conduct . \ . . 17 

III. Opportunities for Moral Training in the Daily 

School 27 

IV. The Classification of Duties 37 

V. The Moral Outfit of Children on entering School . 47 

PRIMARY COURSE. 

VI. The Use of Fairy Tales 64 

VII. The Use of Fables 80 

VIII. Supplementary Remarks on Fables .... 96 

IX, Selected Stories from the Bible 106 

X. The Odyssey and the Iliad 146 

GRAMMAR COURSE. 
Lessons on Duty. 

XI. The Duty of acquiring Knowledge .... 169 
XII. Duties which relate to the Physical Life and the 

Peelings 185 

XIII. Duties which relate to Others (Filial and Fraternal 

Duties) 202 

XIV. Duties toward all Men (Justice and Charity) . . 218 
XV. The Elements of Civic Duty 236 

XVI. The Use of Proverbs and Speeches .... 245 

XVII. Individualization of Moral Teaching . . . 349 

APPENDIX. 

The Influence of Manual Training on Character . . 257 

(xiii) 



IKTRODUCTOEY LECTUKES. 



THE PEOBLEM 
OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 

It will be the aim of the present course of lect- 
ures to give in outline the subject-matter of moral 
instruction for children from six to fourteen or iif- 
teen years of age, and to discuss the methods accord- 
ing to which this kind of instruction should be im- 
parted. At the outset, however, we are confronted 
by what certainly is a grave difficult}^, and to many 
may appear an insuperable one. The opinion is 
widely held that morality depends on religious sanc- 
tions, and that right conduct can not be taught — es- 
pecially not to children — except it be under the au- 
thority of some sort of religious belief. To those 
who think in this way the very phrase, unsectarian 
moral teaching, is suspicious, as savoring of infidel- 
ity. And the attempt to mark off a neutral moral 
zone,' outside the domains of the churches, is apt 
to be regarded as masking a covert design on re- 
ligion itself. 

The principle of unsectarian moral instruction, 
however, is neither irreligious nor anti-religious. In 
fact — as will appear later on — it rests on purely 
educational grounds, with which the religious bias 
of the educator has nothing whatever to do. But 

(3) 



4 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

there are also grounds of expediency which, at least 
in the United States, compel ns, whether we care to 
do so or not, to face this problem of unsectarian 
moral education, and to these let us first give our at- 
tention. Even if we were to admit, for argument's 
sake, the correctness of the proposition that moral 
truths can only be taught as corollaries of some form 
of religious belief, the question would at once present 
itself to the educator. To which form of religious 
belief shall he give the preference ? I am speaking 
now of the public schools of the United States. 

These schools are supported out of the general 
fund of taxation to which all citizens are compelled 
to contribute. Clearly it would be an act of gross 
injustice to force a citizen belonging to one denomi- 
nation to pay for instilling the doctrines of some 
other into the minds of the young — in other words, 
to compel him to support and assist in spreading 
religious ideas in which he does not believe. This 
would be an outrage on the freedom of conscience. 
But the act of injustice would become simply mon- 
strous if parents were to be compelled to help indoc- 
trinate their own children with such religious opin- 
ions as are repugnant to them. 

There is no state religion in the United States. 
In the eyes of the state all shades of belief and dis- 
belief are on a par. There are in this country 
Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, 
Baptists, Jews, etc. They are alike citizens. They 
contribute alike toward the maintenance of the pub- 
lic schools. With what show of fairness, then, 



UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 5 

conld the belief of any one of these sects be adopted 
by the state as a basis for the inculcation of moral 
truths ? The case seems, on the face of it, a hope- 
less one. But the following devices have been sug- 
gested to remove, or rather to circumvent, the diffi- 
culty. 

First Device. — Let representatives of the various 
theistic churches, including Catholics, Protestants, 
and Jews, meet in council. Let them eliminate all 
those points in respect to which they differ, and 
formulate a common creed containing only those 
articles on which they can agree. Such a creed 
would include, for instance, the belief in the exist- 
ence of Deity, in the immortality of the soul, and 
in future reward and punishment. Upon this as a 
foundation let the edifice of moral instruction be 
erected. There are, however, two obvious objections 
to this plan. In the first place, this " Dreibund " 
of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism would 
leave out of account the party of the agnostics, 
whose views may indeed be erroneous, or even de- 
testable, but whose rights as citizens ought not the 
less on that account to be respected. " JSTeminem 
IcBde^'' hurt no one, is a cardinal rule of justice, 
and should be observed by the friends of religion 
in their dealings with their opponents as well as with 
one another. The agnostic party has grown to 
quite considerable dimensions in the United States. 
But, if it had not, if there were only a single person 
who held such opinions, and he a citizen, any attempt 
on the part of the majority to trample upon the 



6 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

rights of this one person would still be inexcusable. 
In the sphere of political action the majority rules, 
and must rule ; in matters that touch the conscience 
the smallest minority possesses rights on which even 
an overwhelming majority arrayed on the opposite 
side can not afford to trespass. It is one of the 
most notable achievements of the American com- 
monwealths that they have so distinctly separated 
between the domain of religion and of politics, 
adopting in the one case the maxim of coercion by 
majority rule, in the other allowing the full measure 
of individual liberty. From this standpoint there 
should be no departure. 

But the second objection is even more cogent. It 
is proposed to eliminate the differences which sepa- 
rate the various sects, and to formulate their points 
of agreement into a common creed. But does it 
not occur to those who propose this plan that the 
very life of a religion is to be found precisely in 
those points in which it differs from its neighbors, 
and that an abstract scheme of belief, such as has 
been sketched, would, in truth, satisfy no one? 
Thus, out of respect for the sentiments of the Jews, 
it is proposed to omit the doctrines of the divinity 
of Christ and of the atonement. But would any 
earnest Christian give his assent, even provisionally, 
to a creed from which those quintessential doc- 
trines of Christianity have been left out ? When 
the Christian maintains that morality must be based 
on religion, does he not mean, above all, on the belief 
in Christ ? Is it not indispensable, from his point 



UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 7 

of view, that the figure of the Saviour shall stand in 
the foreground of moral inculcation and exhortation ? 
Again, when the Catholic affirms that the moral 
teaching of the young must be based on religion, is 
it to be supposed for an instant that he would accept 
as satisfying his conception of religion a skeleton 
creed like that above mentioned, denuded of all 
those peculiar dogmas which make religion in his 
eyes beautiful and dear ? This first device, there- 
fore, is to be rejected. It is unjust to the agnostics, 
and it will never content the really religious persons 
of any denomination. It could prove acceptable 
only to theists pure and simple, whose creed is 
practically limited to the three articles mentioned ; 
namely, the belief in Deity, immortality, and future 
punishment and reward. But this class constitutes 
a small fraction of the community ; and it would be 
absurd, under the specious plea of reconciling the 
various creeds, in effect to impose the rationalistic 
opinions of a few on the whole community. 

The second device seems to promise better results. 
It provides that religious and moral instruction com- 
bined shall be given in the public schools under the 
auspices of the several denominations. According 
to this plan, the pupils are to be divided, for pur- 
poses of moral instruction, into separate classes, ac- 
cording to their sectarian affiliations, and are to be 
taught separately by their own clergymen or by teach- 
ers acting under instructions from the latter. The 
high authority of Germany is invoked in support of 
this plan. If I am correctly informed, the president 



8 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

of one of our leading universities has recently spoken 
in favor of it, and it is likely that an attempt will 
be made to introduce it in the United States. Al- 
ready in some of our reformatory schools and other 
public institutions separate religious services are held 
by the ministers of the various sects, and we may 
expect that an analogous arrangement will be pro- 
posed with respect to moral teaching in the common 
schools. It is necessary, therefore, to pay some at- 
tention to the German system, and to explain the rea- 
sons which have induced or compelled the Germans 
to adopt the compromise just described. The chief 
points to be noted are these : In Germany, church and 
state are united. The King of Prussia, for instance, 
is the head of the Evangelical Church. This con- 
stitutes a vital difference between America and Ger- 
many. Secondly, in Germany the schools existed 
before the state took charge of them. The school 
system was founded by the Church, and the problem 
which confronted the Government was how to con- 
vert church schools into state schools. An attempt 
was made to do this by limiting the influence of the 
clergy, which formerly had been all-powerful and 
all-pervasive, to certain branches and certain hours 
of instruction, thereby securing the supremacy of 
the state in respect to all other branches and at all 
other hours. In America, on the other hand, the 
state founded the schools ah initio. In Germany 
the state has actually encroached upon the Church, 
has entered church schools and reconstructed them 
in its own interest. To adopt the German system 



UNSEOTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 9 

in America would be to permit the Churcli to en- 
croach upon the state, to enter state schools and 
subordinate them to sectarian purposes. The ex- 
ample of Germany can not, therefore, be quoted as a 
precedent in point. The system of compromise in 
Germany marks an advance in the direction of in- 
creasing state influence. Its adoption in this country 
would mark a retrograde movement in the direction 
of increasing church influence. 

Nor can the system, when considered on its own 
merits, be called a happy one. Prof. Gneist, in his 
valuable treatise. Die Konfessionelle Schule (which 
may be read by those who desire to inform them- 
selves on the historical evolution of the Prussian sys- 
tem), maintains that scientific instruction must be 
unsectarian, while religious instruction must be sec- 
tarian. I agree to both his propositions. But to 
my mind it follows that, if religious instruction must 
be sectarian, it ought not to have a place in state 
schools, at least not in a country in which the separa- 
tion of church and state is complete. Moreover, the 
limitation of religious teaching to a few hours a 
week can never satisfy the earnest sectarian. If he 
wants religion in the schools at all, then he will also 
want that specific kind of religious influence which 
he favors to permeate the whole school. He will 
insist that history shall be taught from his point 
of view, that the readers shall breathe the spirit of 
his faith, that the science teaching shall be made to 
harmonize with its doctrines, etc. What a paltry 
concession, indeed, to open the door to the clergy- 



10 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

man twice or three times a week, and to permit 
him to teach the catechism to the pupils, while the 
rest of the teaching is withdrawn from his control, 
and is perhaps informed by a spirit alien to his ! This 
kind of compromise can never heartily be indorsed ; 
it may be accepted under pressure, but submission 
to it will always be under protest.* 

The third arrangement that has been suggested 
is that each sect shall build its own schools, and draw 
upon the fund supplied by taxation proportionately 
to the number of children educated. But to this 
there are again two great objections : First, it is 
the duty of the state to see to it that a high edu- 
cational standard shall be maintained in the schools, 
and that the money spent on them shall bear fruit 
in raising the general intelligence of the community. 
But the experience of the past proves conclusively 
that in sectarian schools, especially where there are 
no rival unsectarian institutions to force them into 
competition, the preponderance of zeal and interest is 
so markedly on the side of religious teaching that the 
secular branches unavoidably suffer.f If it is said 

* Since the above was written, the draft of the Volksschul- 
gesetz submitted to the Prussian Legislature, and the excited 
debates to which it gave rise, have supplied a striking confirma- 
tion of the views expressed in the text. Notliing could be more 
mistaken than to propose for imitation elsewhere the German 
" solution " of the problem of moral teaching in schools, espe- 
cially at a time when the Germans themselves are taking great 
pains to make it clear that they are as far as possible from hav- 
ing found a solution. 

■j- During the reactionary period which followed the Revolu- 



UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. H 

that the state may prescribe rules and set up standards 
of its own, to which the sectarian schools shall be 
held to conform, we ask, Who is to secure such con- 
formance? The various sects, once having gained 
possession of the public funds, would resent the in- 
terference of the State. The Inspectors who might 
be appointed would never be allowed to exercise 
any real control, and the rules which the State 
might prescribe would remain dead letter. 

In the second place, under such an arrangement, 
the highest purpose for which the public schools 
exist would be defeated. Sectarian schools tend to 
separate the members of the various denominations 
from one another, and to hinder the growth of that 
spirit of national unity which it is, on the other 
hand, the prime duty of the public school to create 
and foster. The support of a system of public edu- 
cation out of the proceeds of taxation is justifiable 
in the last analysis as a measure dictated to the 
State by the law of self-preservation. The State 
maintains public schools in order to preserve itself 
— i. e., its unity. And this is especially true in a 
republic. In a monarchy the strong arm of the 
reigning dynasty, supported by a ruling class, may 
perhaps suppress discord, and hold the antagonistic 
elements among the people in subjection by sheer 
force. In a republic only the spirit of unity among 
the people themselves can keep them a people. 

tion of 1848, the school regulations of Kur-Hessen provided 
that twenty hours a week be devoted in the Volkschulen to 
religious teaching. 



12 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

And this spirit is fostered in public schools, where 
children of all classes and sects are brought into 
daily, friendly contact, and where together they are 
indoctrinated into the history, tradition, and aspira- 
tions of the nation to which they belong. 

"What then ? "We have seen that we can not en- 
courage, that we can not permit, the establishment 
of sectarian schools at the public expense. "We have 
also seen that we can not teach religion in the public 
schools. Must we, therefore, abandon altogether the 
hope of teaching the elements of morals ? Is not 
moral education conceded to be one of the most im- 
portant, if not the most important, of all branches of 
education ? Must we forego the splendid opportuni- 
ties afforded by the daily schools for this purpose ? 
Is there not a way of imparting moral instruction 
without giving just offense to any religious belief or 
any religious believer, or doing violence to the rights 
of any sect or of any party whatsoever ? The cor- 
rect answer to this question would be the solution of 
the problem of unsectarian moral education. I can 
merely state my answer to-day, in the hope that the 
entire course before us may substantiate it. The 
answer, as I conceive it, is this : It is the business 
of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to 
his pupils the subject-matter of morality, but not to 
deal with the sanctions of it ; to give his pupils a 
clearer understanding of what is right and what 
is wrong, but not to enter into the question why 
the right should be done and the wrong avoided. 
For example, let us suppose that the teacher is treat- 



UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 13 

ing of veracity. He says to the pnpil, Thou slialt 
not lie. He takes it for granted that the pupil feels 
the force of this commandment, and acknowledges 
that he ought to yield obedience to it. For my 
part, I should suspect of quibbling and dishonest 
intention any boy or girl who would ask me, Why 
ought I not to lie ? I should hold up before such a 
child the Ought in all its awful majesty. The right 
to reason about these matters can not be conceded 
until after the mind has attained a certain maturity. 
And as a matter of fact every good child agrees 
with the teacher unhesitatingly when he says, It is 
wrong to lie. There is an answering echo in its 
heart which coniirms the teacher's words. But 
what, then, is it my business as a moral teacher to 
do ? In the first place, to deepen the impression of 
the wrongfulness of lying, and the sacredness of 
truth, by the spirit in which I approach the subject. 
My first business is to convey the spirit of moral 
reverence to my pupils. In the next place, I ought 
to quicken the pupil's perceptions of what is right 
and wrong, in the case supposed, of what is truth 
and what is falsehood. Accordingly, I should ana- 
lyze the different species of lies, with a view 
of putting the pupils on their guard against the 
spirit of falsehood, however it may disguise it- 
self. I should try to make my pupils see that, when- 
ever they intentionally convey a false impression, 
they are guilty of falsehood. I should try to make 
their minds intelligent and their consciences sensi- 
tive in the matter of truth-telling, so that they may 



14 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

avoid those numerous ambiguities of which children 
are so fond, and which are practiced even by adults. 
I should endeavor to tonic their moral nature with 
respect to truthfulness. In the next place, I should 
point out to them the most frequent motives which 
lead to lying, so that, by being warned against the 
causes, they may the more readily escape the evil con- 
sequences. Tor example, cowardice is one cause of 
lying. By making the pupil ashamed of cowardice, 
we can often cure him of the tendency to falsehood. 
A redundant imagination is another cause of lying, 
envy is another cause, selfishness in all its forms is a 
principal cause, etc. I should say to the moral teach- 
er : Direct the pupil's attention to the various danger- 
ous tendencies in his nature, which tempt him into 
the ways of falsehood. Furthermore, explain to 
your pupils the consequences of falsehood : the loss 
of the confidence of our fellow-men, which is the 
immediate and palpable result of being detected in 
a lie ; the injuries inflicted on others ; the loosening 
of the bonds of mutual trust in society at large ; the 
loss of self-respect on the part of the liar ; the fatal 
necessity of multiplying lies, of inventing new false- 
hoods to make good the first, etc. A vast amount 
of good, I am persuaded, can be done in this way 
by stimulating the moral nature, by enabling the 
scholar to detect the finer shades of right and wrong, 
helping him to trace temptation to its source, and 
erecting in his mind barriers against evil-doing, 
founded on a realizing sense of its consequences. 
In a similar if not exactly the same way, all the 



UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. 15 

other principal topics of practical morality can 
be handled. The conscience can be enlightened, 
strengthened, guided, and all this can be done with- 
out once raising the question why it is wrong to do 
what is forbidden. That it is wrong should rather, 
as I have said, be assumed. The ultimate grounds of 
moral obligation need never be discussed in school. 
It is the business of religion and philosophy to pro- 
pose theories, or to formulate articles of belief with 
respect to the ultimate sources and sanctions of 
duty. Eeligion says we ought to do right because 
it is the will of God, or for the love of Christ. 
Philosophy says we should do right for utilitarian 
or transcendental reasons, or in obedience to the 
law of evolution, etc. The moral teacher, fortu- 
nately, is not called upon to choose between these 
various metaphysical and theological asseverations. 
As an individual he may subscribe to any one of 
them, but as a teacher he is bound to remain within 
the safe limits of his own province. He is not to 
explain why we should do the right, but to make the 
young people who are intrusted to his charge see 
more clearly what is right, and to instill into them his 
own love of and respect for the right. There is a 
body of moral truth upon which all good men, 
of whatever sect or opinion, are agreed : it is the 
business of the public schools to deliver to their 
pupils this common fund of moral truth. But I 
must hasten to add, to deliver it not in the style of 
the preacher, but according to the methods of the 
pedagogue — i. e., in a systematic way, the moral 



16 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

lessons being graded to suit the varying ages and 
capacities of the pupils, and the illustrative material 
being sorted and arranged in like manner. Con- 
ceive the modern educational methods to have been 
applied to that stock of moral truths which all good 
men accept, and you will have the material for the 
moral lessons which are needed in a public school. 



II. 

THE EFFICIENT MOTIVES OF GOOD 
CONDUCT. 

There are persons in whom moral principle 
seems to have completely triumphed ; whose con- 
duct, so far as one can judge, is determined solely 
by moral rules ; but whom, nevertheless, we do not 
wholly admire. "We feel instinctively that there is 
In their virtue a certain flaw — the absence of a sav- 
ing grace. They are too rigorous, too much the 
slaves of duty. They lack geniality. 

Like religion, morality has its fanatics. Thus, 
there is in the temperance movement a class of 
fanatics who look at every public question from the 
point of view of temperance reform, and from that 
only. There are also woman's-rights fanatics, social 
purity fanatics, etc. The moral fanatic in every 
case is a person whose attention is wholly engrossed 
by some one moral interest, and who sees this out 
of its relation to other moral interests. The end ]ie 
has in view may be in itself highly laudable, but the 
exaggerated emphasis put upon it, the one-sided pur- 
suit of it, is a mischievous error. 

Observe, further, that there are degrees of moral 
fanaticism. The fanatic of the first degree, to 
whom Emerson addresses the words, " What right 



18 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

have you, sir, to your one virtue ? " has just been 
described. He is a person who exalts some one 
moral rule at the expense of the others. A fanatic 
of a higher order is he who exalts the whole 
body of moral rules at the expense of human in- 
stincts and desires. He is a person who always 
acts according to rule ; who introduces moral con- 
siderations into every detail of life ; who rides the 
moral hobby ; in whose eyes the infinite complex- 
ity of human affairs has only one aspect, namely, 
the moral ; who is never satisfied unless at every step 
he feels the strain of the bridle of conscience ; who 
is incapable of spontaneous action and of naive enjoy- 
ment. It is believed that there are not a few persons 
of this description in the United States, and especially 
in the New England States — fanatics on the moral 
side, examples of a one-sided development in the 
direction of moral formalism. We must be very 
careful, when insisting on the authority of moral 
ideas, lest we encourage in the young a tendency of 
this sort. The hearts of children are very pliable ; 
it is easily possible to produce on them too deep 
an impression : to give them at the outset a fatal 
twist, all the more since at a certain age many 
young people are prone to exaggerated introspection 
and self -questioning. But it may be asked : Are not 
moral principles really clothed with supreme author- 
ity ? Ought we not, indeed, to keep the standard of 
righteousness constantly before our eyes ; in brief, is 
it possible to be too moral ? Evidently we have reached 
a point where a distinction requires to be drawn. 



THE EFFICIENT MOTIVES OF GOOD CONDUCT. 19 

Ethics is a science of relations. The things re- 
lated are human interests, human ends. The ideal 
which ethics proposes to itself is the unity of ends, 
just as the ideal of science is the unity of causes. 
The ends of the natural man are the subject-matter 
with which ethics deals. The ends of the natural 
man are not to be crushed or wiped out, but to be 
brought into right relations with one another. The 
ends of the natural man are to be respected from 
an ethical point of view, so long as they remain 
within their proper limits. The moral laws are 
formulas expressing relations of equality or sub- 
ordination, or superordination. The moral virtue 
of our acts consists in the respect which we pay to 
the system of relationships thus prescribed, in the 
willingness with which we co-ordinate our interests 
with those of others, or subordinate them to those 
of others, as the exigencies of the moral situation 
may require. 

But the point on which it is now necessary to 
fix our attention is that when morality has once sanc- 
tioned any of the ends of life, the natural man may 
be left to pursue them without interference on the 
part of the moralist. When morality has marked out 
the boundaries within which the given end shall be 
pursued, its work so far is done ; except, indeed, that 
we are always to keep an eye upon those boundaries,^ 
and that the sense of their existence should pervade the 
whole atmosphere of our lives.* A few illustrations 

*It must be remembered also that our knowledge of the 



20 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

will make my meaning clear. There is a moral rule 
which says that we should eat to live ; not, conversely, 
live to eat. This means that we should regulate our 
food in such a way that the body may become a fit 
instrument for the higher purposes of existence, and 
that the time and attention bestowed upon the matter 
of eating shall not be so great as to divert us from 
other and more necessary objects. But, these limits 
being estabhshed, it does not follow that it is wrong 
or unspiritual to enjoy a meal. The senses, even 
the lowest of them, are permitted to have free play 
within the bounds prescribed. Nor, again, should we 
try rigidly to determine the choice of food according 
to moral considerations. It would be ridiculous to 
attempt to do so. The choice of food within a wide 
range depends entirely on taste, and has nothing to 
do with moral considerations (whether, for instance, 
we should have squash or beans for dinner). Those 
who are deeply impressed with the importance of 
moral rules are often betrayed into applying them 
to the veriest minutiae of conduct. Did they re- 
member that ethics is a science of relations, or, what 
amounts to the same thing, a science of limits, they 
would be saved such pedantry. Undoubtedly there 
are moral adiaphora. The fact that such exist has 
been a stumbling-block in the way of those who be- 
lieve that morality ought to cover the whole of con- 
right ethical relations is still extremely imperfect, and that the 
duty of extending the knowledge and promoting the recognition 
of them is perhaps the highest of all — to which, on occasion, every 
lesser end must be sacrificed. 



THE EFFICIENT MOTIVES OF GOOD CONDUCT. 21 

duet. The definition of ethics as a science of rela- 
tions or limits removes this stumbling-block. Ethics 
stands at the frontier. With what goes on in the 
interior it does not interfere, except in so far as the 
limitations it prescribes are an interference. Take 
another illustration. Ethics condemns vanity and 
whatever ministers to vanity — as, e. g., undue at- 
tention to dress and adornment of the person — on the 
ground that this implies an immoral subordination 
of the inner to the outer, of the higher to the lesser 
ends. But, to lay down a cast-iron rule as to how 
much one has a right to expend on dress, can not be 
the office of ethics, on account of the infiDite variety 
of conditions and occupations which subsists among 
men. And the attempt to prescribe a single fashion 
of dress, by sumptuary laws or otherwise, would im- 
pair that freedom of taste which it is the business of 
the moralist to respect. Again, every one knows 
with what bitterness the moral rigorists of all ages 
have condemned the impulse which attracts the sexes 
toward one another, and how often they have tried, 
though vainly, to crush it. But here, again, the true 
attitude is indicated by the definition of ethics as a 
science of limits. The moral law prescribes bounds 
within which this emotional force shall be free to 
operate, and claims for it the holy name of love, so 
long as it remains within the bounds prescribed, and, 
being within, remains conscious of them. That is 
what is meant when we speak of spiritualizing 
the feelings. The feelings are spiritualized when 
they move within certain limits, and when the sense 



22 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

of the existence of these limits penetrates them, and 
thereby imparts to them a new and nobler quality. 
And, because such limitation is felt to be satisfying 
and elevating, the system of correlations which we 
call ethical, and which, abstractly stated, would fail to 
interest, does by this means find an entrance into the 
human heart, and awakens in it the sense of the sub- 
limity and the blessedness of the moral commands. 

There are two defects of the moral fanatic which 
can now be signalized : First, he wrongly believes 
that whatever is not of morality is against it. He 
therefore is tempted to frown upon the natural pleas- 
ures ; to banish them if he can, and, if not, to admit 
them only within the narrowest possible limits as a 
reluctant concession to the weakness of human na- 
ture. In consequence, the moral fanatic commits 
the enormity of introducing the taint of the sense 
of sin into the most innocent enjoyments, and thus 
perverts and distorts the conscience. Secondly, he 
is always inclined to seek a moral reason for that 
which has only a natural one ; to forget that, like the 
great conquerors of antiquity. Morality respects the 
laws of the several realms which it unites into a 
single empire, and guarantees to each the unimpaired 
maintenance of its local customs. These remarks 
are intended to serve as a general caution. I find 
that young people, when they have become awakened 
on ethical subjects, often betray a tendency toward 
moral asceticism. I find that teachers, in the earnest 
desire to impress the laws of the moral empire, are 
sometimes betrayed into disregarding the provincial 



THE EFFICIENT MOTIVES OF GOOD CONDUCT. 23 

laws of the senses, the intellect, and the feelings ; are 
apt to go too far in applying moral prescriptions to 
the minutiae of conduct ; are apt to leave the impres- 
sion that pleasant things, just because they are pleas- 
ant, are therefore sinful. 

But we have now to take a further step, which 
will bring us close to our special subject for to-day, 
viz., the efficient motives of good conduct. The 
non-moral faculties are not only not anti-moral, as has 
been shown, but, when appealed to in the right way, 
they lend to Morality a friendly, an almost indis- 
pensable support. The sesthetic, the intellectual, and 
the emotional faculty have not in themselves a moral 
quality, but when used as auxiliaries they pave the 
way for moral considerations pure and simple, and 
have in this sense an immense propsedeutic value. 
Without entering in this place into the philosophy 
of aesthetics, it is enough to say that the beautiful, 
like the good, results from and depends on the ob- 
servance of certain limits and certain relations. And 
it will not seem far-fetched to suggest that pupils 
who have been trained to appreciate moderation, re- 
straint and harmony of relations in external objects, 
will be predisposed to apply analogous measures to 
matters of conduct, and that a standard of valuation 
will thus be created in their minds which must prove 
favorable to right action. Esthetics may become a 
pedagogue unto ethics. The same pedagogical func- 
tion may be claimed for the intellect. The intellect 
traces the connection between causes and effects. Ap- 
plied to conduct, it shows the connection between acts 



24 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

and their consequences. It is the faculty which coun- 
sels prudence. One does not need to accept the ego- 
istic theory of morals to concede that self-interest is 
an ally of morality, that Prudence and Virtue travel 
hand in hand a certain distance on the same road. Not, 
indeed, until the ideal state shall have been reached 
w^ill the dictates of the two ever coincide entirely ; 
but to a certain extent the coincidence already exists, 
and the moral teacher is justified in availing himself 
of it as far as it goes. 

To take a very simple case — a child handles a 
knife which it has been told not to touch, and 
cuts his fingers. Morally speaking, his fault is dis- 
obedience. He would have been equally guilty if 
he had escaped injury. But he would hardly be so 
ready to obey another time, if he had been less 
sharply reminded of the usefulness of obedience. It 
is wrong to lie — wrong on purely moral grounds, 
with which self-interest has nothing to do. But for 
all that we can not dispense with the lesson contained 
in the well-known fable of the boy who cried, " Wolf ! " 
It is wrong to steal on purely moral grounds. But 
even a child can be made to understand that the 
thief, as Emerson puts it, " steals from himself," 
and that, besides being a rogue, he is deficient in en- 
lightened self-interest. The maxim that honesty is 
the best policy is true enough so far as the facts are 
concerned, which come under the observation of 
children, though one may question whether it be true 
absolutely. 

Lastly, when we come to consider the emotional 



THE EFFICIENT MOTIVES OF GOOD CONDUCT. 25 

faculty, we find that the intimate connection between 
it and the moral is so generally conceded as to make 
it quite superfluous to expatiate on it. On the con- 
trary, it seems necessary to expostulate with those 
who claim too much credit for the feelings, who as- 
cribe to them a moral value which they by no means 
possess. Thus, gentleness is not necessarily a virtue ; 
it may be a mere matter of temperament. Sympa- 
thetic impulses, jper se, are not praiseworthy. Sym- 
pathy quite as often leads us astray as aright ; sym- 
pathy, indeed, unless tutored and regulated by moral 
principles, is a danger against which we ought to be 
on our guard almost as much as against selfishness. 
Yet, no one will deny that the feelings, when rightly 
trained, are of inestimable service as auxiliaries in 
the task of moral education. 

To sum up, let me say that the wise teacher will 
appeal to the taste, the intelligence, and the feelings 
of his pupils ; that he will touch these various springs 
of conduct all the time, and get from them all the 
help he can. Thus, when speaking of cleanliness, 
he will appeal to the aesthetic instinct of the children, 
awakening in them a feeling of disgust at untidiness. 
He will appeal to the prudential motive, by showing 
that want of cleanliness breeds disease. " You do not 
wish to be sick ? You do not wish to suffer ? There- 
fore, it is to your interest to be clean." But, finally, 
he will touch a higher motive than any of these. " If 
you are unclean, you cease to respect yourself." And 
the term self-respect expresses in a condensed form 
the moral motive proper. It implies the idea of 



26 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

moral personality, wliicli it is not necessary, nor pos- 
sible, at this stage to analyze, but which the pupil will 
somehow understand, for his conscience will respond. 
In many cases the appeal will be made chiefly to the 
sympathetic feelings ; for through these feelings 
we become aware of the pains and joys of others, 
and thus of the consequences of the benefits we con- 
fer or the evil we inflict. The sympathetic feelings 
supply the information upon which the will can act. 
They tell us that others sutfer or are glad. And yet 
the strength to labor persistently for the relief of 
others' suffering and the enhancement of others' joy 
— that we can derive from the moral impulse alone. 
The moral motive is the highest, it is really the 
only sufficient motive. Pray, understand me well at 
this point. I should say to the child : It is wrong 
to lie. That is suflicient. It is wrong, it is for- 
bidden ; you must yourself acknowledge the truth of 
my words, because you despise yourself when you 
have told a lie. But, in order to strengthen your 
weak resolution, to confirm you in well-doing, let 
me show you that it is also contrary to self-interest 
to lie, and likewise that it is disgusting to be unclean, 
and that a wrong done to another causes pain. Thus 
the {Esthetic, intellectual, and emotional faculties are 
called in as witnesses to bear testimony to the moral 
truths ; they are invited to stand up in chorus and 
say Amen ! to the moral commands. 



HI. 

OPPOETUNITIES FOR MOEAL TRAINING 
IN THE DAILY SCHOOL. 

The school should be to the pupil not an intel- 
lectual drill-ground, but a second home ; a place dear 
at the time, and to be gratefully remembered ever 
after ; a place in which his whole nature, and espe- 
cially what is best in him, may expand and grow. 
The educational aim should be, not merely to pave 
the pupil's way to future success, not merely to 
make of his mind a perfect instrument of thought, 
a kind of intellectual loom, capable of turning out 
the most complicated intellectual patterns. The aim 
should be, above all ; to build up manhood, to develop 
character. There is no school in which moral influ- 
ence is wanting. The pity is, that in many schools 
it is incidental, not purposed. And yet there are 
manifold opportunities in every school for influenc- 
ing the moral life. Let us consider a few of these. 

1. The teaching of science lends itself to the cul- 
tivation of truthfulness. Truthfulness may be de- 
fined as the correspondence between thought and 
word and fact. When the thought in the mind fits 
the fact, and the word on the tongue fits the thought, 
then the circuit of truth is complete. Now, with 
respect to the inculcating of truthfulness, science 



28 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

teaching has this advantage above other branches, 
that tlie palpable nature of the facts dealt with makes 
it possible to note and check the least deviation 
from the truth. The fact is present, right before the 
pupil, to rebuke him if he strays from it in thought 
or speech. And this circumstance may be utilized 
even in the humble beginnings of science teaching, 
in the so-called object-lessons. For instance, a bird, 
or the picture of one, is placed before the child. The 
teacher says, " Observe closely and tell me exactly 
what you see — the length of the neck, the curve of 
the beak, the colors of the plumage," etc. The pupil 
replies. The teacher objects : " You have not ob- 
served accurately. The color is not what you de- 
scribe it to be. Look again. The curve of the l^eak 
does not resemble what you have just drawn on the 
blackboard. You must tell me exactly what you 
see. Your words must tally with the facts." And 
the same sort of practice may be continued in the 
science-lessons of the upper classes. 

Scientists are distinguished from other observers 
by their greater accuracy. Intellectual honesty is 
that moral quality which science is best calculated 
to foster. All the great scientists have been haunted 
by a high ideal of truth, and a gleam of that ideal, 
however faint, may be made to shed its light even 
into the school-room. It is obvious that this realistic 
tutoring into veracity will be of special use to chil- 
dren who are led into lying by a too vivid imagina- 
tion. 

Let me add the following remarks in regard to 



MORAL TRAINING IN THE DAILY SCHOOL. 29 

indirect means of promoting truthfulness : The 
teacher can do a great deal to cultivate respect for 
the truth among his pupils by frankly admitting 
an error whenever he has fallen into one. Some 
teachers try to save their dignity by glossing over 
their mistakes'. But even young children are shrewd 
enough to estimate such trickery at its worth ; while 
he who manfully confesses that he has been in the 
wrong, earns the respect of his class, and sets them 
an invaluable example. 

It is well also to observe strict accuracy even in 
matters which of themselves are of no moment. For 
instance, in giving an account of a botanizing ex- 
pedition, you begin, perhaps, by saying, " It was 
half-past ten when we arrived at our destination." 
Suddenly you stop and correct yourself. "No, I 
was mistaken ; it could not have been later than ten 
o'clock." Does this strike you as pedantic ? But if 
you fix the time at all, is it not worth while to fix 
it with approximate exactness ? True, it makes no 
difference in regard to what you are about to relate, 
whether you arrived at half -past ten or at ten. 
But, precisely because it makes no difference, it 
shows the value which you set on accuracy even in 
trifles. And by such little turns of phrase, by such 
insubstantial influences, coming from the teacher, 
the pupil's character is molded. 

2. The study of history^ when properly conducted 
is of high moral value. History sets before the mind 
examples of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of love of 
country, of devotion to principles at the greatest 



30 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

cost. How can such examples fail to inspire, to en- 
noble, to awaken emulation ? The great and good 
men of the past, the virtuous and the wise, serve as 
models to the young, and often arouse in them an 
enthusiastic admiration, a passionate discipleship. 
In the next place, the study of history may be used 
to exercise the moral judgment. The characters 
which history presents are not all good ; the char- 
acters even of the good are by no means faultless- 
It is in the power of the teacher to train the moral 
judgment and to increase tlie moral insight of his 
pupils by leading them to enter into the motives, 
and to weigh the right and wrong of the actions 
which history reports. He will also find many an 
occasion to warn against being dazzled by brilliant 
success to such a degree as to condone the moral 
turpitude by which it is often bought. The study 
of history can thus be made the means of enlighten- 
ing the conscience as well as of awakening generous 
aspirations — but, let me hasten to add, only in the 
hands of a teacher who is himself morally mature, 
and fully imbued with the responsibilities of his task. 
Lastly, the study of history among advanced pupils 
may be used to confirm the moral idea of the 
mission of mankind, and to set it in its true light. 
The human race, as, from the moral point of 
view, we are bound to assume, exists on earth in 
order to attempt the solution of a sublime prob- 
lem — the problem of the perfect civilization, the 
just society, the " kingdom of God." But on every 
page of history there are facts that warn us that 



MORAL TRAINING IN THE DAILY SCHOOL. 31 

progress toward this high ideal is of necessity 
slow. Whether we review the evolution of relig- 
ion, or of political institutions, or of industrial so- 
ciety, we are still forced to the same solemn con- 
clusion, that in view of the ultimate goal, " a thou- 
sand years are as a day," and that while we may not 
relax our efforts to attain the ideal, we must be well 
content in case we are permitted to advance the 
mighty work even a little. This conviction is cal- 
culated to engender in us a new spirit of piety and 
self-abnegation, which yet is consistent with perfect 
alacrity in discharging the duty of the hour. 

There could be no better result from the study 
of history among young men and young women than 
if it should have the effect of impressing on them 
this new piety, this genuine historic sense, in which 
the average citizen, especially of democratic com- 
munities, is so conspicuously deficient. But this is 
a digression which I must ask you to pardon. 

3. The moral value of the study of literature is 
as great as it is obvious. Literature is the medium 
hrough which all that part of our inner life finds 
expression which defies scientific formulation. In 
the text-books of science we possess the net result of 
the purely intellectual labors of the past ; in universal 
literature we have composite photographs, as it were, 
of the typical hopes, sentiments, and aspirations of 
the race. Literature gives a voice to that within us 
which would otherwise remain dumb, and fixity to 
that which would otherwise be evanescent. The 
best literature, and especially the best poetry, is a 



32 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

glass in wliich we see our best selves reflected. 
There is a legend which tells of two spirits, the 
one an angel, the other a demon, that accompany 
every human being through life, and walk invisibly 
at his side. The one represents our bad self, the 
other our better self. The moral service which the 
best literature renders us is to make the invisible 
angel visible. 

4. I can but cast a cursory glance at some of the 
remaining branches of instruction. 

Manual training has a moral effect upon the 
pupil, of which I have spoken at some length on an- 
other occasion.* 

Music^ apart from its subtler influences, which 
can not be considered here, has the special function 
of producing in the pupil a feeling of oneness with 
others, or of social unity. This is best accomplished 
through the instrumentality of chorus singing, while 
particular moral sentiments, like charity, love of 
home, etc., can be inculcated by means of the texts. 

Gymnastic exercises likewise have a moral eflect 
in promoting habits of self-control, prompt obedi- 
ence at the word of command, etc. Indeed, it is not 
diflicult to show the moral bearings of the ordi- 
nary branches of instruction. It would, on the con- 
trary, be diflicult to find a single one, which, when 
rightly viewed, is not surrounded by a moral photo- 
sphere. 

Science, history, literature, and the other branches 

* In the address on the subject, reprinted in the Appendix. 



MORAL TRAINING IN THE DAILY SCHOOL. 33 

lend themselves in various ways to the development 
of character. But there are certain other opportu- 
nities which every school offers, apart from the teach- 
ing, and these may be utilized to the same end. 
The discipline of the school, above all, has an im- 
mense effect on the character. If it is of the 
right kind, a beneficial effect ; if not, a most per- 
nicious one. 

The mere working of what may be called the 
school machinery tends to inculcate habits of order, 
punctuality, and the like. The aggregation of a 
large number of scholars in the same building and 
their intercourse with one another under the eye of 
the teachers, afford frequent opportunities for im- 
pressing lessons of kindness, politeness, mutual help- 
fulness, etc. 

The recitations of lessons give occasion not only 
to suppress prompting, but to eradicate the motives 
which lead to it, and to impress deeply the duty of 
honesty. 

The very atmosphere of the class-room should be 
such as to encourage moral refinement ; it should 
possess a sunny climate, so to speak, in which mean- 
ness and vulgarity can not live. 

But there is especially one avenue of influence, 
which I have much at heart to recommend. The 
teacher should join in the games of his pupils. He 
will thus at once come to stand on a friendly footing 
with them, and win their confidence, without in the 
least derogating from his proper dignity. And thus 
will be removed that barrier which in many schools 
3 



34 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

separates pupils and teachers to such a degree tliat 
there actually seem to exist side by side two worlds — 
the world to which the teacher has access, and the 
world from which he is shut out. Moreover, while 
they are at play, the true character of the pupils re- 
veals itself. At such times the sneak, the cheat, the 
bully, the liar, shows his true colors, and the teacher 
has the best opportunity of studying these pathologi- 
cal subjects and of curing their moral defects. For, 
while playing with them, as one concerned in the 
game, he has the right to insist on fair dealing, to 
express liis disgust at cowardice, to take the part of 
the weak against the strong, and his words spoken 
on the playground will have tenfold the effect of 
any hortatory address which he might deliver from 
the platform. The greatest and most successful of 
teachers have not disdained to use this device. 

Finally, let me say that the personality of the 
master or principal of the school is the chief factor 
of moral influence in it. Put a great, sound, whole- 
souled nature at the head of a school, and everything 
else may almost be taken for granted. In every 
school there exists a public opinion among the 
scholars, by which they are affected to a far greater 
degree than by the words of their superiors. The 
tactful master will direct his chief attention to shap- 
ing and improving this public opinion, while at 
the same time interfering as little as possible with 
the freedom of his pupils. He can accomplish 
his purpose by drawing close to himself those schol- 
ars who make the public opinion of the school, and 



MORAL TRAINING IN THE DAILY SCHOOL. 35 

these in turn he can win to fine and manly views only 
by the effect of his personality. The personality of 
the head-master is everything. It is the ultimate 
source of power in the school, the central organ 
which sends out its life-giving currents through the 
whole organism. And let me here add that, if I am 
in favor of excluding direct religious teaching from 
our schools, I am not in favor of excluding religious 
influence. That, too, flows from the personality of 
the true master. For if he be reverent, a truly pious 
soul, humble in his estimate of self, not valuing his 
petty schoolmaster's authority on its own account, 
but using it lovingly as an instrument for higher 
ends, he will be sure to communicate of his spirit 
to his pupils, and by that spirit will open their 
hearts, better than by any doctrinal teaching he 
could give, to the reception of the highest spiritual 
truths. 

By all these means — by the culture of the intel- 
lect, the taste, and the feelings, by his daily dealings 
with the young, in work and play — the teacher helps 
to create in them certain moral habits. "Why, then, 
should not these habits suffice ? What need is there 
of specific moral instruction ? And what is the re- 
lation of moral instruction to the habits thus engen- 
dered ? 

The function of moral instruction is to clinch the 
habits. The function of moral instruction is to ex- 
plicate in clear statements, fit to be grasped by the 
intellect, the laws of duty which underlie the habits. 
The value of such intellectual statements is that they 



36 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

give a rational underpinning to moral practice, and, 
furthermore, that they permit the moral rules to be 
applied to new cases not heretofore brought within 
the scope of habit. This thought will be more fully 
developed and explained as we proceed. 



IV. 
CLASSIFICATION OP DUTIES. 

The topics of which moral instruction treats are 
the duties of life. To teach the duties, however, we 
must adopt some system of classification. To which 
system shall we give the preference ? The difficulty 
which we encountered at the outset seems to meet us 
here in a new guise. 

For most if not all of the systems of classification 
commonly proposed are based upon some metaphysical 
theory or some theological doctrine. To adopt any 
one of these would be tantamount to adopting the 
theory or theology on which it is founded ; would be 
equivalent to introducing surreptitiously a particular 
philosophy or creed into the minds of the pupils; 
and this would be a plain departure from the unsec- 
tarian principle to which we are pledged. Thus, 
Plato's fourfold division of the virtues into the so- 
called cardinal virtues of temperance, courage, justice, 
wisdom, is based on his psychology. Aristotle's 
division of the virtues into dianoetic and what he 
calls ethical virtues is clearly dependent on what 
may be termed Aristotle's intellectualism — i. e., the 
supreme importance which he assigns to the func- 
tions of the intellect, or 1/01)9, in the attainment of 
the perfect life. 



38 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

Kant's division of duties into complete and in- 
complete is an outgrowth of tlie ideas developed in 
his Critique of Pure Reason ; the philosopher Her- 
bart's fivefold classification reflects his metaphysical 
theory of reality ; wliile the systems of ethical 
classification which are to be found in theological 
handbooks betray still more clearly the bias of their 
authors. 

"We can, I think, find a simple way out of this 
difficulty by proceeding in the following manner : 
Let us take for our guidance the objects to which 
duty relates, and disregard the sources from which 
it flows. It is conceded on all hands that every one 
is to himself an object of duty, that he has certain 
duties to perform with respect to himself, as, for 
instance, the duty of intellectual development ; fur- 
thermore, tiiat every person owes certain duties to 
his fellow-men generally, in virtue of the fact that 
they are human beings; again, that there are spe- 
cial duties which we owe to particular persons, 
such as parents, brothers, and sisters ; finally, that 
there are certain duties, into which, so to speak, 
we are born, like the ones last mentioned, and 
others which we can freely assume or not, like 
the conjugal duties, but which, once assumed, be- 
come as binding as the former. Thus the very struct- 
ure of human society suggests a scheme of classifi- 
cation. And this scheme has the advantage of 
being a purely objective one. It keeps close to 
the facts, it is in harmony with the unsectarian 
principle, and it is perfectly fair. It leaves the 



CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. 39 

problem of first principles entirely untouclied. That 
we liave such duties to perform with respect to 
self and others, no one questions. Let philosophers 
differ as to the ultimate motives of duty. Let 
them reduce the facts of conscience to any set of 
first principles which may suit them. It is our part 
as instructors to interpret the facts of conscience, 
not to seek for them an ultimate explanation. 

Let me briefly indicate how the different du- 
ties may be made to fall into line according to 
the plan of classification which has just been sug- 
gested. The whole field of duty may be divided 
into three main provinces : * those duties which re- 
late to ourselves, those which we owe to all men, and 
those which arise in the special relations of the fam- 
ily, the state, etc. : 

I. The Self-regarding Duties. 

These may again be subdivided into duties re- 
lating to our physical nature, to the intellect, and to 
the feelings. 

Under the head of physical duties belong the 
prohibition of suicide, and the duties of physical cult- 
ure, temperance, and chastity. 

Intellectual Duties. — Under this head may be 
ranged the duty of acquiring knowledge and the 

* It may be urged by some that duties toward God ought to 
be included in such a scheme of moral lessons as we are propos- 
ing. I should say, however, that the discussion of these duties 
belongs to the Sunday-schools, the existence of which alongside 
the daily schools is presupposed throughout the present course of 
lectures. 



40 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

subsidiary duties of order, diligence, perseverance 
in study ; while, for those who are beyond the 
school age, special stress should be laid on the duty 
of mental genuineness. This may be expressed 
in the words : To thine own mental self be true. 
Study thine own mental bent. Try to discover in 
what direction thy proper talent lies, and make the 
most of it. Work thine own mine: if it be a 
gold-mine, bring forth gold ; if it be a silver-mine, 
bring forth silver; if it be an iron-mine, bring 
forth iron. Endeavor to master some one branch 
of knowledge thoroughly well. It is for thee the 
key which opens the gates of all knowledge. The 
need of general culture is felt by all, but the con- 
centration of intellectual efforts on special studies is 
not inconsistent with it. On the contrary, special 
studies alone enable us to gain a foothold in the 
realm of knowledge. A branch of knowledge which 
we have mastered, however small, may be com- 
pared to a strong fortress in an enemy's country, 
from which we can sally forth at will to conquer the 
surrounding territory. Knowledge may also be lik- 
ened to a sphere. From every point of the circum- 
ference we can, by persistent labor, dig down to the 
center. lie who has reached the center commands 
the sphere. 

Duties which relate to the Feelings. — The prin- 
cipal duty under this head may be expressed in the 
twofold command — control and purify thy feelings ! 
The feelings which need to be repressed are anger, 
fear, self-complacency. Let the teacher, when he 



CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. 41 

readies tliis point, dwell upon tlie causes and tlie 
consequences of anger. Let liim speak of certain 
helps wliicli have been found useful for tlie sup- 
pression of angry passion. Let him distinguish 
anger from moral indignation. 

In dealing with fear let him pursue the same 
method. Let him distinguish physical from moral 
cowardice, brute courage from moral courage, cour- 
age from fortitude. 

In dealing with self-complacency let him discrimi- 
nate between vanity and pride, between pride and 
dignity. Let him show that humility and dignity 
are consistent with one another, yes, that they are 
complementary aspects of one and the same moral 
quality. JSTot the least advantage to be reaped from 
lessons on duty is the fixing in the pupil's mind of 
the moral vocabulary. The moral terms as a rule 
are loosely used, and this can not but lead to con- 
fusion in their application. Precise definitions, 
based on thorough discussion, are an excellent means 
of moral training.* 

II. The duties which we owe to all men are Jus- 
tice and Charity : 

Be just is equivalent to — Do not hinder the de- 
velopment of any of thy fellow-men. Be charitable 
is equivalent to — Assist the development of thy fel- 
low-men. Under the head of charity the teacher 

* The duties which relate to the moral nature, as a whole, 
such for instance as the duty of self-scrutiny, may be considered 
either at the end of the chapter on self-regarding duties, or at 
the close of the whole course. 



42 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

will liave occasion to speak not only of almsgiving, 
the visitation of the sick, and the like, bnt of the thou- 
sand charities of the fireside, of the charity of bright 
looks, of what may be called intellectual charity, 
which consists in opening the eyes of the mentally 
blind, and of the noblest charity of all, which consists 
in coming to the aid of those who are deep in the 
slough of moral despond, in raising the sinful and 
fallen. 

III. Special social duties : 

Under this head belong the duties which arise in 
the family : the conjugal, the parental, the filial, the 
fraternal duties. 

Under the head of duties peculiar to the various 
avocations should be discussed the ethics of the pro- 
fessions, the ethics of the relations between employers 
and laborers, etc. 

The consideration of the duties of the citizen 
opens up the whole territory of political ethics. 

Lastly, the purely elective relationships of friend- 
ship and religious fellowship give rise to certain fine 
and lofty ethical conceptions, the discussion of which 
may fitly crown the whole course. 

I have thus mentioned some of the main topics 
of practical ethics, from which we are to make our 
selection for the moral lessons. 

But a selective principle is needed. The field be- 
ing spread out before us, the question arises. At what 
point shall we enter it ? "What topics shall we single 
out ? It would be manifestly absurd, for instance, 
to treat of international ethics, or of conjugal eth- 



CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. 43 

ics, in a course intended for children. But especial- 
ly the order in which the different topics are to fol- 
low each other needs to be determined. The order 
followed in the above sketch is a purely logical one, 
and the logical arrangement of a subject, as every 
educator knows, is not usually the one most suitable 
for bringing it within reach of the understanding of 
children. It would not be in the present instance. 
Clearly a selective principle is wanted. 

Let me here interrupt myself for a moment to 
say that the problem which we are attacking, so far 
from being solved, has heretofore hardly even been 
stated. And this is due to the fact that moral in- 
struction has been thus far almost entirely in the 
hands of persons whose chief interest was religious, 
and who, whatever their good intentions might be, 
were hardly qualified to look at the subject from the 
educator's point of view. The work of breaking 
ground in the matter of moral instruction has still 
to be done. As to the selective principle which I 
have in view I feel a certain confidence in its cor- 
rectness ; but I am aware that the applications of it 
will doubtless require manifold amendment and cor- 
rection, for which purpose I invoke the experience 
and honest criticism of my fellow-teachers. This 
being understood, I venture to ask your attention to 
the following considerations : 

The life of every human being naturally divides it- 
self into distinct periods — infancy, childhood, youth, 
etc. Each period has a set of interests and of corre- 
sponding duties peculiar to itself. The moral teaching 



44 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

should be graded according to periods. The teach- 
ing aj)propriate to any period is that wliich bears 
upon the special duties of that period. To illustrate, 
the ethics of childhood may be suniniarized as follows: 
The personal duties of a child are chieliy the observ- 
ance of a few simple rules of health and the curbing of 
its temper. It owes social duties to parents, brothers 
and sisters, and kinsfolk, to its playmates, and to ser- 
vants. The child is not yet a citizen, and the ethics of 
politics, therefore, lie far beyond its horizon ; it does 
not yet require to be taught professional ethics, and 
does not need to learn even the elements of intellectual 
duty, because its energies are still absorbed in physical 
growth and plajv The duties of childhood can be 
readily stated. The peculiar duties of the subsequent 
stagea of development, for instance, of middle life 
and old age, are complex, and not so easy to define. 
But I believe that the attempt to describe them will 
throw light on many recondite problems in ethics. 

My first point therefore is, that the moral teach- 
ing at a given i)eriod should be made to fit the special 
duties of that period. Secondly — and this touches 
the core of the matter — in every period of life there 
is some one predominant duty around which all the 
others may be grouped, to which as a center they 
may be referred. Thus, the paramount duty of the 
young child is to reverence and obey its parents. 
The relation of dependence in which it stands natu- 
rally prescribes this duty, and all its other duties can 
be deduced from and fortified by this one. The 
correctness of its personal habits and of its behavior 



CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. 45 

toward others depends jtrimarily on its obedience to 
the parental commands. The child resists the tem- 
ptation to do what is wrong, chiefly because it re- 
spects the authority and desires to win the approba- 
tion of father and mother. Secondary motives are 
not wanting, but reverence for parents is the princi- 
pal one. 

Thirdly, in each new period there emerges a new 
paramount ethical interest, a new center of duties. 
But with the new system of duties thus created the 
previous ethical systems are to be brought into line, 
into harmonious correlation. And this will be all 
the more feasible, because the faithful performance 
of the duties of any one period is the best preparation 
for the true understanding and fulfillment of those 
of the next. From these statements the following 
conclusions may be drawn with respect to the ques- 
tion under discussion — namely, the proper sequence 
of the topics of duty in a course of moral lessons. 

The moral lessons being given in school, must 
cover the duties which are peculiar to the school 
age. The paramount duty should be placed in the 
foreground. I^ow the paramount duty of children 
between six and fourteen years of age is to acquire 
knowledge. Hence we begin the lessons with the 
subject of intellectual duty. In the next place, the 
duties learned in the previous periods are to be 
brought into line with the duties of the school age. 
At each new step on the road of ethical progress the 
moral ideas already acquired are to be reviewed, 
confirmed, and to receive a higher interpretation. 



46 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

"We have already seen that, before the child enters 
school, its personal duties are such as relate to the 
physical life and the feelings, and its chief social 
duties are the filial and fraternal. 

Therefore, the order of topics for the lessons 
thus far stands : The duty of acquiring knowledge ; 
the duties which relate to the physical life ; the duties 
which relate to the feelings ; the filial duties ; the fra- 
ternal duties. 

Again, a child that has learned to respect the 
rights of its brothers and sisters, and to be lovingly 
helpful to them, will in school take the right atti- 
tude toward its companions. The fraternal duties 
are typical of the duties which we owe to all our 
companions, and, indeed, to all human beings. 

The next topic of the lessons, therefore, will be 
the duties which we owe to all human beings. 

Finally, life in school prepares for life in society 
and in the state, and so this course of elementary 
moral lesson will properly close with " The elements 
of civic duty." 



V. 

THE MOEAL OUTFIT OF CHILDEEN ON 
ENTEKING SCHOOL. 

It is difficult to trace the beginnings of the moral 
life in children. The traveler who attempts to fol- 
low some great river to its source generally finds 
himself confused by the number of ponds and 
springs which are pointed out to him with the assur- 
ance in the case of each that this and no other is 
the real source. In truth, the river is fed not from 
one source but from many, and does not attain its 
unity and individuality until it has flowed for some 
distance on its way. In like manner, the moral life 
is fed by many springs, and does not assume its dis- 
tinctive character until after several years of human 
existence have elapsed. The study of the develop- 
ment of conscience in early childhood is a study of 
origins, and these are always obsciTre. But, besides, 
the attention hitherto given to this subject has been 
entirely inadequate, and even the attempts to observe 
in a systematic way the moral manifestations of child- 
hood have been few. 

Parents and teachers should endeavor to answer 
such questions as these : "When do the first stirrings 
of the moral sense appear in the child ? How do 
they manifest themselves ? What are the emotional 

(47) 



48 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

and the intellectual equipments of the child at differ- 
ent periods, and how do these correspond with its 
moral outfit ? At what time does conscience enter 
on the scene ? To what acts or omissions does the 
child apply the terms right and wrong ? If obser- 
vations of this kind were made with care and duly 
recorded, the science of education would have at its 
disposal a considerable quantity of material from 
which no doubt valuable generalizations might be 
deduced. Every mother especially should keep a 
diary in which to note the successive phases of her 
child's physical, mental, and moral growth ; with 
particular attention to the moral ; so that parents 
may be enabled to make a timely forecast of their 
childrens' characters, to foster in them every germ 
of good, and by prompt precautions to suppress, or 
at least restrain, what is bad. 

I propose in the present lecture to cast a glance 
at the moral training which the normal child re- 
ceives before it enters school, and the moral outfit 
which it may be expected to bring with it at the 
time of entering. Fortunately, it is not necessary 
to go very deeply into the study of development of 
conscience for this purpose. A few main points 
will suffice for our guidance. 

First Point. — The moral training of a child can 
be begun in its cradle. Regularity is favorable to 
morality. Regularity acts as a check on impulse. 
A child should receive its nourishment at stated in- 
tervals ; it should become accustomed to sleep at 
certain hours, etc. If it protests, as it often does vig- 



MORAL OUTFIT OF CHILDREN". 49 

orously enough, its protests should be disregarded. 
After a while its cries will cease, it will learn to 
submit to the rule imposed, and the taking of pleas- 
ure in regularity and the sense of discomfort when 
the usual order is interrupted become thenceforth a 
part of its mental life. I do not maintain that 
regularity itself is moral, but that it is favorable to 
morality because it curbs inclination. I do not say 
that rules are always good, but that the life of im- 
pulse is always bad. Even when we do the good 
in an impulsive way we are encouraging in our- 
selves a vicious habit. Good conduct consists in 
regulating our life according to good principles; 
and a willingness to abide by rules is the first, the 
indispensable condition of moral growth. IsTow, the 
habit of yielding to rules may be implanted in a 
child even in the cradle. 

Second Point. — A very young child — one not 
older than a year and a half — can be taught to obey, 
to yield to the parent's will. A child a year and a 
half old is capable of adhering to its own will in de- 
fiance of the expressed will of father or mother. 
In this case it should be constrained to yield. We 
shall never succeed in making of it a moral person 
if it does not realize betimes that there exists a 
higher law than the law of its will. And of this 
higher law, throughout childhood, the parent is, as 
it were, the embodiment. "When I say that obe- 
dience can be exacted of a child of such tender ae:e, 
that a child so young is capable of deliberately op- 
posing the will of the parent, I speak from experi- 
4 



50 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

ence. I know a certain little lady who undertook 
a struggle with her father precisely in the way de- 
scribed. The struggle lasted fully thirty -five min- 
utes by the clock. But when it was over, the child 
stretched out her little arms and put up her lips to 
be kissed, and for days after fairly clung to her father, 
showing him her attachment in the most demonstra- 
tive manner. Nor should this increase of affection- 
ateness excite surprise — it is the proper result of a 
conflict of this sort between father and child when 
conducted in the right spirit. The child is happy 
to be freed from the sway of its wayward caprice, 
to feel that its feeble will has been taken up into 
a will larger and stronger than its own. 

Third Point. — "What is called conscience does 
not usually begin to show itself until the child is about 
three years old. At this age the concept self usually 
emerges, and the child begins to use the personal 
pronoun I. This is one of these critical turning 
points in human development, of which there are 
several. The beginning of adolescence marks another. 
I am inclined to suspect that there is one at or about 
thirty-three. There seem to be others later on. At 
any rate the first turning point — that which occurs at 
three — is marked unmistakably. At this time, as we 
have just said, the child begins to be distinctly self- 
conscious ; it says " I," and presently " you," " he," 
and " they." Now, moral rules formulate the rela- 
tions which ought to subsist between one's self and 
others, and to comprehend the rules it is clearly 
necessary to be able to hold apart in the mind and 



MORAL OUTFIT OF CHILDREN. 51 

to contrast witli one another the persons related. 
It is evident, therefore, that the emergence of the 
concept self must have a decided effect on moral de- 
velopment. 

I feel tempted to pause here a moment and to 
say a word in ]3assing about the extreme importance 
of the constituent elements of the concept self. For 
it must not be supposed that the pronoun " I " means 
the same thing on the lips of every person who uses 
it. " I " is a label denoting a mass of associated 
ideas, and as these ideas are capable of almost end- 
less variation, so the notion of selfhood is corre- 
spondingly diversiiied in different individuals. In 
the case of children, perhaps the principal constit- 
uents of the concept are supplied by their outward 
appearance and environment. When a child speaks 
of itself, it thinks primarily of its body, especially 
its face, then of the clothes it usually wears, the 
house it lives in, the streets through which it 
habitually walks, its parents, brothers, sisters, school- 
masters, etc.* If we analyze the meaning of " I " 
in the case of two children, the one well-born and 
well brought up, the other Avithout these advantages, 
we shall perhaps find such differences as the follow- 
ing : " I " in the one case will mean a being living 
in a certain decent and comfortable house, always 
wearing neat clothing, surrounded by parents, broth- 

* So important is environment in supporting self-conscious- 
ness, that even adults, when suddenly transported into entirely 
new surroundings, often experience a momentary doubt as to 
their identity. 



52 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

ers, and sisters who speak kindly to one another and 
have gentle manners, etc. In the other case, the 
constituents of the concept self may be very differ- 
ent. " I " in the case of the second child may mean 
a creature that lives in a dark, filthy hovel and walks 
every day through narrow streets, reeking with garb- 
age. " I " may mean the child of a father who comes 
home drunk and strikes the mother when the angry 
fit is upon him. " I " stands for a poor waif that 
wears torn clothes, and when he sits in school by the 
side of well-dressed children is looked at askance 
and put to shame. It is obvious that the elements 
which go to make up the concept self affect the 
child's moral nature by lowering or raising its self- 
esteem. I remember the case of one, who as a boy 
was the laughing-stock of his class on account of the 
old-fashioned, ill-fitting clothes which he was com- 
pelled to wear, and who has confessed that even late 
in life he could not entirely overcome the effect of 
this early humiliation, and that he continued to be 
painfully aware in himself, in consequence, of a cer- 
tain lack of ease and self-possession. Hence we 
should see to it that the constituent elements of the 
concept self are of the right kind. It is a mistake 
to suppose that the idea of selfhood stands off in- 
dependently from the elements of our environment. 
The latter enter into, and when they are bad eat into, 
the very kernel of our nature. 

We have seen that the development of the in- 
tellect as it appears in the growing distinctness of 
self-consciousness exercises an important influence 



MORAL OUTFIT OF CHILDREN. 53 

on tlie development of the moral faculty. But 
there is still another way in which this influence be- 
comes apparent. The function of conscience further 
depends on the power of keeping alternative courses 
of action before the mind. Angels capable only of the 
good, or fiends actuated exclusively by malice, could 
not be called moral creatures. A moral act always 
presupposes a previous choice between two possible 
lines of action. And until the power of holding 
the judgment in suspense, of hesitating between al- 
ternative lines of conduct, has been acquired, con- 
science, strictly speaking, does not manifest itself. 
We may say that the voice of conscience begins to 
be heard when, the parent being absent, the child 
hesitates between a forbidden pleasure and obedience 
to the parental command. Of course, not every 
choice between alternative courses is a moral act. If 
any one hesitates whether to remain at home or to go 
for a walk, whether to take a road to the right or 
to the left, the decision is morally indifferent. But 
whenever one of the alternative courses is good and 
the other bad, conscience does come into play. 

At this point, however, the question forcibly 
presents itself. How does it come to pass in the 
experience of children that they learn to regard cer- 
tain lines of action as good and others as bad ? You 
will readily answer, The parent characterizes cer- 
tain acts as good and others as bad, and the child 
accepts his definition ; and this is undoubtedly true. 
The parent's word is the main prop of the budding 
conscience. But how comes the parent's word to 



54 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

produce belief ? This is indeed the crucial question 
touching the develoj)ment of the moral faculty. 
Mr. Bain says that the child fears the punishment 
which the parent will inflict in case of disobedience ; 
that the essential form and defining quality of 
conscience from first to last is of the nature 
of dread. He seems to classify the child's con- 
science with the criminal conscience, the rebel con- 
science which must be energized by the fear of 
penalties. But this explanation seems very unsatis- 
factory. Every one, of course, must admit that 
the confirmations of experience tend greatly to 
strengthen the parent's authority. The parent 
says, You must be neat. The child, if it does as 
it is bidden, finds an aesthetic pleasure in its becom- 
ing appearance. The parent says. You must not 
strike your little brother, but be kind to him ; and 
the child, on restraining its anger, is gratified by the 
lovino; words and looks which it receives in return. 
The parent says. You must not touch the stove, or 
you will be burned. The disobedient child is effect- 
ually warned by the pain it suffers to be more obedi- 
ent in future. But all such confirmations are mere 
external aids to parental authority. They do not 
explain the feeling of reverence with which even a 
young child, when rightly brought up, is wont to 
look up to his father's face. To explain this senti- 
ment of reverence, I must ask you to consider the 
following train of reasoning. It has been remarked 
already that the parent should be to the child the vis- 
ible embodiment of a higher law. This higher law 



MORAL OUTFIT OF CHILDREN. 55 

shining from the .father's countenance, making its 
Bublime presence felt in the mother's eye, wakens 
an answering vibration in the child's heart. The 
child feels the higher presence and bows to it, 
though it could not, if it tried, analyze or explain 
what it feels. "We should never forget that children 
possess the capacity for moral development from the 
outset. It is indeed the fashion with some modern 
writers to speak of the child as if it were at first a 
mere animal, and as if reflection and morality were 
mechanically superadded later on. But the whole 
future man is already hidden, not yet declared, 
but latent all the same in the child's heart. The 
germs of humanity in its totality exist in the young 
being. Else how could it ever unfold into full-grown 
morality ? It will perhaps serve to make my mean- 
ing clearer if I call attention to analogous facts relat- 
ing to the intellectual faculty. The formula of caus- 
ality is a very abstract one, which only a thoroughly 
trained mind can grasp. But even very young chil- 
dren are constantly asking questions as to the causes 
of things. What makes the trees grow ? what makes 
the stars shine ? — i. e., what is the cause of the trees 
growing and the stars shining ? The child is con- 
stantly pushing, or rather groping, its way back 
from effects to causes. The child's mind acts under 
what may be called the causative instinct long before 
it can apprehend the law of causation. In the 
same way young children perfectly follow the pro- 
cess of syllogistic reasoning. If a father says, on 
leaving the house for a walk : I can take with me 



56 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

only a child that has been good ; now, you have not 
been good to-day ; the child without any difficulty 
draws the conclusion, Therefore I can not go out 
walking with my father to-day. The logical laws 
are, as it were, prefigured in the child's mind long 
before, under the chemical action of experience they 
come out in the bright colors of consciousness. Or, 
to use another figure, they exert a pressure on the 
child of which he himself can give no account. 
And in like manner the moral law — the law which 
prescribes certain relations between self and others — 
is, so to speak, prefigured in the child's mind, and 
when it is expressed in commands uttered by the 
parent, the pressure of external authority is con- 
firmed by a pressure coming from within. We can 
illustrate the same idea from another point of view. 
"Whenever a man of commanding moral genius ap- 
pears in the world and speaks to the multitude from 
his height, they are for the moment lifted to his 
level and feel the afflatus of his spirit. This is so 
because he expresses potentialities of human nature 
which also exist in them, only not unfolded to the 
same degree as in him. It is a matter of common 
observation that persons who under ordinary circum- 
stances are content to admire what is third rate and 
fourth rate are yet able to appreciate what is first 
rate when it is presented to them — at least to the ex- 
tent of recognizing that it is first rate. And yet 
their lack of development shows itself in the fact 
that presently they again lose their hold on the 
higher standard of excellence, and are thereafter con- 



MORAL OUTFIT OP CHILDREN. ' 57 

tent to put up with what is inferior as if the glimpses 
of better things had never been opened to them. Is 
it not because, though capable of rising to the higher 
level, they are not capable of maintaining them- 
selves on it unassisted. Kow, the case of the parent 
with respect to the child is analogous. He is on a 
superior moral plane. The child feels that he is, 
without being able to understand why. It feels the 
afflatus of the higher spirit dwelling in the parent, 
and out of this feeling is generated the sentiment of 
reverence. And there is no greater benefit which 
father or mother can confer on their offspring than 
to deepen this sentiment. It is by this means that 
they can most efficiently promote the development 
of the child's conscience, for out of this reverence 
will grow eventually respect for all rightly consti- 
tuted authority, respect and reverence for law, hu- 
man and divine. The essential form and defining 
quality of conscience is not, therefore, as Bain has 
it — fear of punishment. In my opinion such fear is 
abject and cowardly. The sentiment engendered by 
fear is totally different from the one we are con- 
templating, as the following consideration will serve 
to show : A child fears its father when he punishes it 
in anger ; and the more violent his passion, the more 
does the child fear him. But, no matter how stern 
the penalty may be which he has to inflict, the 
child reveres its father in proportion as the traces of 
anger are banished from his mien and bearing, in 
proportion as the parent shows by his manner that 
he acts from a sense of duty, that he has his eye 



58 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

fixed on tlie sacred measures of right and wrong, 
that he himself stands in awe of the subHme com- 
mands of which he is, for the time being, the ex- 
ponent. 

To recapitulate briefly the points which we have 
gone over : regular habits can be inculcated and 
obedience can be taught even in infancy. By obe- 
dience is meant the yielding of a wayward and 
ignorant will to a firm and enlightened one. The 
child between three and six years of age learns 
clearly to distinguish self from others, and to delib- 
erate between alternative courses of action. It is 
highly important to control the elements which 
enter into the concept self. The desire to choose 
the good is promoted chiefly by the sentiment of 
reverence. 

We are thus prepared to describe in a general 
way the moral outfit of the child on entering school. 
We have, indeed, already described it. The moral 
acquirements of the child at the age of which we 
speak express themselves in habits. The normal 
child, under the influences of parental example and 
command, has acquired such habits as that of per- 
sonal cleanliness, of temperance in eating, of respect 
for the truth. Having learned to use the pronouns I 
and thou, it also begins to understand the difference 
between ineiim and tuum. The property sense 
begins to be developed. It claims its own seat at 
table, its own toys against the aggression of others. 
It has gained in an elementary way the notion of 
rights. 



MORAL OUTFIT OF CHILDREN. 59 

This is a stock of acquirements by no means in- 
considerable. The next step in the progress of con- 
science must be taken in the school. Until now 
the child has been aware of duties relating only or 
principally to persons whom it loves and who love it. 
The motive of love is now to become less promi- 
nent. A part of that reverence which the child has 
felt for the parents whom it loves is now to be 
transferred to the teacher. A part of that respect 
for the rights of equals which has been impressed 
upon it in its intercourse with brothers and sisters, 
to whom it is bound by the ties of blood, is now to 
be transferred to its school companions, who are 
at first strangers to it. Thus the conscience of the 
child will be expanded, thus it will be prepared for 
intercourse with the world. Thus it will begin to 
gain that higher understanding of morality, accord- 
ing to which authority is to be obeyed simply be- 
cause it is rightful, and equals are to be treated as 
equals, even when they are not and can not be re- 
garded with afliection. 

I have in the above used the word habits advised- 
ly. The morality of the young child assumes the 
concrete form of habits ; abstract principles are still 
beyond its grasp. Habits are acquired by imitation 
and repetition. Good examples must be so persist- 
ently presented and so often copied that the line of 
moral conduct may become the line of least resist- 
ance. The example of parents and teachers is in- 
deed specially important in this respect. But after 
all it is not suificient. For the temptations of adults 



60 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

differ in many ways from those of children, and 
on the other hand in the lives of older persons oc- 
casions are often wanting for illustrating just the 
peculiar virtues of childhood. On this account it is 
necessary to set before the child ideal examples of 
the virtues of children and of the particular tempta- 
tions, against which they need to be warned. Of 
such examples we find a large stock ready to hand 
in the literature of fairy tales, fables, and stories. 
In our next lecture therefore we shall begin to con- 
sider the use of fairy tales, fables, and stories as means 
of creating in children those habits which are essen- 
tial to the safe guarding and unfolding of their moral 
life. 



PPJMAKY COUESE. 



VI. 
THE USE OP FAIRY TALES. 

Theee has been and still is considerable differ- 
ence of opinion among educators as to the value of 
fairy tales. I venture to think that, as in many other 
cases, the canse of the quarrel is what logicians 
call an v/iidistributed Tniddle — in other words, that 
the parties to the dispute have each a different kind 
of fairy tale in mind. This species of literature can 
be divided broadly into two classes — one consisting 
of tales which ought to be rejected because they are 
really harmful, and children ought to be protected 
from their bad influence, the other of tales which 
have a most beautiful and elevating effect, and which 
we can not possibly afford to leave unutilized. 

The chief pedagogic value they possess is that 
they exercise and cultivate the imagination. Now, 
the imagination is a most powerful auxiliary in the 
development of the mind and will. The familiar 
anecdote related of Marie Antoinette, who is said 
to have asked why the people did not eat cake 
when she was told that they were in want of bread, 
indicates a deficiency of imagination. Brought up 
amid the splendor of courts, surrounded by luxury, 
she could not put herself in the place of those who 
lack the very necessaries. Much of the selfishness 

(63) 



64 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

of the world is due not to actual liard-heartedness, 
but to a similar lack of imaginative power. It is 
difficult for the happy to realize the needs of the 
miserable. Did they realize those needs, they would 
in many cases be melted to pity and roused to help. 
The faculty of putting one's self in the place of others 
is therefore of great, though indirect, service to the 
cause of morality, and this faculty may be cultivated 
by means of fairy tales. As they follow intently 
the progress of the story, the young listeners are con- 
stantly called upon to j)lace themselves in the situa- 
tions in which they have never been, to imagine 
trials, dangers, difficulties, such as they have never ex- 
perienced, to reproduce in themselves, for instance, 
such feelings as that of being alone in the wide 
world, of being separated from father's and mother's 
love, of being hungry and without bread, exposed 
to enemies without protection, etc. Thus their sym- 
pathy in a variety of forms is aroused. 

In the next place, fairy tales stimulate the idealiz- 
ing tendency. What were life worth without ideals ! 
How could hope or even religion germinate in the 
human heart were we not able to confront the dis- 
aj)pointing present with visions which represent the 
fulfillment of our desires. " Faith," says Paul, " is 
the confidence of things hoped for, the certainty of 
things not seen." Thus faith itself can not abide 
unless supported by a vivid idealism. It is true, the 
ideals of childhood are childish. In the story called 
Das Marienkind we hear of the little daughter of a 
poor wood-cutter who was taken up bodily into heav- 



THE USE OP FAIRY TALES. 65 

en. There slie ate sweetmeats and drank cream every 
day and wore dresses made of gold, and the angels 
played with her. Sweetmeats and cream in plenty 
and golden dresses and dear little angels to play with 
may represent the ideals of a young child, and these 
are materialistic enough. But I hold nevertheless 
that something — nay, much — has been gained if a 
child has learned to take the wishes out of its heart, 
as it were, and to project them on the screen of fancy. 
As it grows up to manhood, the wishes will become 
more spiritual, and the ideals, too, will become cor- 
respondingly elevated. In speaking of fairy tales I 
have in mind chiefly the German Mdrchen, of which 
the word fairy tale is but an inaccurate rendering. 
The Mdrchen are more than mere tales of helpful 
fairies. They have, as is well-known, a mythologi- 
cal background. They still bear distinct traces of 
ancient animism, and the myths which center about 
the phenomena of the storm, the battle of the sun 
with the clouds, the struggle of the fair spring god 
with the dark winter demons, are in them leading 
themes. But what originally was the outgrowth of 
superstition has now, to a great extent at least, been 
purified of its dross and converted into mere poetry. 
The Mdrchen come to us from a time when the 
world was young. They represent the childhood of 
mankind, and it is for this reason that they never 
cease to appeal to children. The Mdrchen have a 
subtile flavor all their own. They are pervaded by 
the poetry of forest life, are full of the sense of 
mystery and awe, which is apt to overcome one on 
5 



66 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

penetrating deeper and deeper into the woods, 
away from human habitations. Tlie Ifdrchen deal 
with the underground life of nature, which weaves 
in caverns and in the heart of mountains, where 
gnomes and dwarfs are at work gathering hidden 
treasures. And with this underground life children 
have a marvelous sympathy. The Mlirchen present 
glowing pictures of sheltered firesides, where man 
finds rest and security from howling winds and 
nipping cold. But perhaps their chief attraction is 
due to their representing the child as living in 
brotherly fellowship with nature and all creatures. 
Trees, flowers, animals wild and tame, even the stars, 
are represented as the comrades of children. That 
animals are only human beings in disguise is an 
axiom in the fairy tales. Animals are humanized — 
i. e., the kinship between animal and human life is 
still strongly felt, and this reminds us of those early 
animistic interpretations of nature, which subse- 
quently led to doctrines of metempsychosis. Plants, 
too, are often represented as incarnations of hu- 
man spirits. Thus the twelve lilies are inhabited 
by the twelve brothers, and in tlie story of Snow- 
white and Rose-red the life of the two maidens ap- 
pears to be bound up with the life of the white and 
red rosebush. The kinship of all life whatsoever is 
still realized. This being so, it is not surprising that 
men should understand the language of animals, and 
that these should interfere to protect the heroes and 
heroines of the MdrcJien from threatened dangers. 
In the story of the faithful servant John, the three 



THE USE OF FAIRY TALES. 67 

ravens flying above the sliip reveal the secret of the 
red horse, the sulphurous shirt, and the three drops of 
blood, and John, who understands their communica- 
tions, is thereby enabled to save his master's life. 
What, again, can be more beautiful than the way in 
which the tree and the two white doves co-operate to 
secure the happiness of the injured Cinderella ! The 
tree rains down the golden dresses with which she 
appears at the ball, and the doves continue to warn 
the prince as he rides by that he has chosen the 
wrong bride until Cinderella herself passes, when they 
light on her shoulders, one on her right and the 
other on her left, making, perhaps, the loveliest pict- 
ure to be found in all fairy lore. The child still 
lives in unbroken communion with the whole of 
nature ; the harmony between its own life and the 
enveloping life has not yet been disturbed, and it is 
this harmony of the human with the natural world 
that reflects itself in the atmosphere of the Mdrchen, 
and makes them so admirably suited to satisfy the 
heart of childhood. 

But how shall we handle these Marchen and 
what method shall we employ in putting them to 
account for our special purpose ? I have a few 
thoughts on this subject, which I shall venture to 
submit in the form of counsels. 

l&j first counsel is: Tell the story; do not give 
it to the child to read. There is an obvious prac- 
tical reason for this. Children are able to benefit 
by hearing fairy tales before they can read. But 
that is not the only reason. It is the childhood of 



68 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

the race, as we have seen, tliat speaks in tlie fairy 
story to tlie child of to-day. It is the voice of an 
ancient, far-off past that echoes from the lips of the 
story-teller. The words " once upon a time " open 
up a vague retrospect into the past, and the child 
gets its first indistinct notions of history in this way. 
The stories embody the tradition of the childhood 
of mankind. They have on this account an author- 
ity all their own, not indeed that of literal truth, 
but one derived from their being types of certain 
feelings and longings which belong to childhood as 
such. The child as it listens to the MdTchen^ looks 
up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person 
who tells the story, and thrills responsive as the 
touch of the earlier life of the race thus falls upon 
its own. Such an effect, of course, can not be pro- 
duced by cold type. Tradition is a living thing, 
and should use the living voice for its vehicle. 

My second counsel is also of a practical nature, 
and I make bold to say quite essential to the suc- 
cessful use of the stories. Do not take the moral 
plum out of the fairy-tale pudding, but let the 
child enjoy it as a whole. Do not make the story 
taper toward a single point, the moral point. You 
will squeeze all the juice out of it if you try. Do 
not subordinate the purely fanciful and naturalistic 
elements of the story, such as the love of mystery, 
the passion for roving, the sense of fellowshij) with 
the animal world, in order to fix attention solely on 
the moral element. On the contrary, you will gain 
the best moral effect by proceeding in exactly the 



THE USE OF FAIRY TALES. 69 

opposite way. Treat tlie moral element as an inci- 
dent ; emphasize, it indeed, but incidentally. Pluck 
it as a wayside flower. How often does it happen 
that, having set out on a journey with a distinct ob- 
ject in mind, something occurs on the way which we 
had not foreseen, but which in the end leaves tl^ 
deepest impression on the mind. The object which 
we had in view is long forgotten, but the incident 
which happened by the way is remembered for 
years after. So the moral result of the Mdrchen 
will not be less sure because gained incidentally. 
An illustration will make plain what I mean. In 
the story of the Frog King we are told that there 
was once a young princess who was so beautiful that 
even the Sun, vdiicli sees a great many things, had 
never seen anything so beautiful as she was. A 
golden ball was her favorite plaything. One day, 
as she sat by a well under an old linden tree, she 
tossed the ball into the air and it fell into the well. 
She was very unhappy, and cried bitterly. Pres- 
ently a frog put his ugly head out of the water, 
and offered to dive for the ball, on condition, how- 
ever, that she would promise to take him for her 
playmate, to let him eat off her golden plate and 
drink out of her golden cup and sleep in her little 
snow-white bed. The princess promised everything. 
But no sooner had the frog brought her the ball 
than she scampered away, heedless of his cries. 
The next day as the royal family sat at dinner a 
knock was heard at the door. The princess opened 
and beheld the ugly toad claiming admittance. She 



70 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

Bcreamed with fright and hastily shut the door 
in his face. But when the king, her father, had 
questioned her, he said, " What you have promised, 
you must keep " ; and she obeyed her father, though 
it was sorely against her inclination to do so. That 
was right, children, was it not ? One must alwa^^s 
obey, even if one does not like what one is told 
to do. So the toad was brought in and lifted to 
the table, and he ate off the little golden plate and 
drank out of the golden cup. And when he had 
had enough, he said, " I am tired now, put me into 
your little snow-white bed." And again when she 
refused her father said : " Wliat you have promised 
you must keep. Ugly though he is, he helped you 
when you were in distress, and you must not despise 
him now." And the upshot of the story is that the 
ugly toad, having been thrown against the wall, was 
changed into a beautiful prince, and of course some 
time after the prince and the princess were mar- 
ried. 

The naturalistic element of the story is the 
changing of the prince into a toad and back again 
from a toad into a prince. Children are very fond 
of disguises. It is one of their greatest pleasures to 
imagine things to be other than they are. And one 
of the chief attractions of such stories as the one we 
have related is that they cater to the fondness of the 
little folks for this sort of masquerading. The moral 
elements of the story are obvious. They should be 
touched on in such a manner as not to divert the in- 
terest from the main story. 



THE USE OP FAIRY TALES. 71 

My third counsel is to eliminate from the stories 
whatever is merely superstitious, merely a relic of 
ancient animism, and of course whatever is objec- 
tionable on moral grounds. For instance, such a 
story as that of the idle spinner, the purport of 
which seems to be that there is a special providence 
watching over lazy people. Likewise all those 
stories which turn upon the success of trickery 
and cunning. A special question arising under 
this head, and one which has been the subject of 
much vexed discussion, is in how far we should ac- 
quaint children with the existence of evil in the 
world, and to what extent we can use stories in 
which evil beings and evil motives are introduced. 
My own view is that we should speak in the child's 
hearing only of those lesser forms of evil, physical or 
moral, with which it is already acquainted, but ex- 
clude all those forms of evil which lie beyond its 
present experience. On this ground I should reject 
the whole brood of step-mother stories, or rather, as 
this might make too wide a swath, I should take the 
liberty of altering stories in which the typical bad 
step-mother occurs, but which are otherwise valuable. 
There is no reason why children should be taught to 
look on step-mothers in general as evilly disposed 
persons. The same applies to stories in w^hich 
unnatural fathers are mentioned. I should also 
rule out such stories as that of The Wolf and The 
Seven Little Goats. The mother goat, on leaving 
the house, warns her little ones against the wolf, 
and gives them two signs by which they can detect 



Y2 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

liim — his hoarse voice and black paws. The wolf 
knocks and finds himself discovered. He thereupon 
swallows chalk to improve his voice and compels 
the miller to whiten his paws. Then he knocks 
again, is admitted, leaps into the room, and devours 
the little goats one by one. The story, as used in 
the nursery, has a transparent purpose. It is in- 
tended to warn little children who are left at home 
alone against admitting strangers. The wolf repre- 
sents evil beings in general — tramps, burglars, people 
who come to kidnap children, etc. Now I, for one, 
should not wish to implant this fear of strangers 
into the minds of the young. Fear is demoralizing. 
Children should look with confidence and trust up- 
on all men. They need not be taught to fear rob- 
bers and burglars. Even the sight of wild animals 
need not awaken dread. Children naturally admire 
the beauty of the tiger's skin, and the lion in their 
eyes is a noble creature, of whose ferocity they have 
no conception. It is time enough for them later on 
to familiarize themselves with the fact that evil of a 
sinister sort exists within human society and outside 
of it. And it will be safe for them to face this fact 
then only, when they can couple with it the convic- 
tion that the forces of right and order in the world 
are strong enough to grapple with the sinister powers 
and hold them in subjection. 

And now let us review a number of the 
Mdrchen against which none of these objections 
lie, which are delicious food for children's minds, 
and consider the place they occupy in a scheme 



THE USE OF FAIRY TALES. 73 

of moral training. It has been already stated that 
each period of human life has a set of duties peculiar 
to itself. The principal duties of childhood are : 
Obedience to parents, love and kindness toward 
brothers and sisters, a proper regard for the feelings 
of servants, and kindness toward animals. We can 
classify the fairy tales which we can use under these 
various heads. Let us begin with the topic last 
mentioned. 

Tales illustrating Kindness toward Ani7nals. 

The House in the Woods. — The daughter of a 
poor wood-cutter is lost in the woods, and comes at 
night to a lonely house. An old man is sitting 
within. Three animals — a cow, a cock, and a chick- 
en — lie on the hearth. The child is made wel- 
come, and is asked to prepare supper. She cooks 
for the old man and herself, but forgets the ani- 
mals. The second daughter likewise goes astray 
in the woods, comes to the same house, and acts in 
the same way. The third daughter, a sweet, loving 
child, before sitting down to her own meal, brings 
in hay for the cow and barley for the cock and 
chicken, and by this act of kindness to animals 
breaks the spell which had been cast upon the house. 
The old man is immediately transformed into a 
prince, etc. 

The Story of the Dog Sultan. — Sultan is old, and 
about to be shot by his master. The wolf, seeing 
his cousin the dog in such distress, promises to help 
him. He arranges that on the morrow he will 



74 MORAL INSTRUCTION OB' CHILDREN. 

seize a sheep belonging to Sultan's master. The dog 
is to run after him, and he, the wolf, will drop the 
sheep and Sultan shall get the credit of the rescue. 
Everything passes off as prearranged, and Sultan's 
life is spared by his grateful owner. Some time 
after the wolf comes prowling around the house, and, 
reminding his friend that one good turn deserves 
another, declares that he has now come for mutton 
in good earnest. But the dog replies that nothing 
can tempt him to betray the interests of his master. 
The wolf persists, but Sultan gives the alarm and 
the thief receives his due in the shape of a sound 
beating. 

The point of special interest in the beautiful 
story of Snow-white and Rose-red above referred to 
is the incident of the bear. One cold winter's night 
some one knocks at the door. Snow-white and 
Rose-red go to open, when a huge black bear appears 
at the entrance and begs for shelter. He is almost 
frozen with the cold, he says, and would like to 
warm himself a bit. The two little girls are at 
first frightened, but, encouraged by their mother, 
they take heart and invite the bear into the kitchen. 
Soon a cordial friendship springs up between Bruin 
and the children. They brush the snow from his 
fur, tease, and caress him by turns. After this the 
bear returns every night, and finally turns out to be 
a beautiful prince. 

The Story of the Queen Bee tells about three 
brothers who wander through the world in search 
of adventures. One day they come to an ant-hill. 



THE USE OP FAIRY TALES. 75 

The two older brothers are about to trample upon 
the ants " just for the fun of it." But the youngest 
pleads with them, saying : " Let them live ; their life 
is as dear to them as ours is to us." l^ext they come 
to a pond in which many ducks are swimming about. 
The two older brothers are determined to shoot the 
ducks " just for the fun of it." The youngest again 
pleads as before, " Let them live," etc. Finally, he 
saves a bee-hive from destruction in the same man- 
ner. Thus they journey on until they come to an 
enchanted castle. To break the spell, it is neces- 
sary to find and gather up a thousand pearls which 
had fallen on the moss-covered ground in a cer- 
tain wood. Five thousand ants come to help the 
youngest to find the pearls. The second task im- 
posed is to find a golden key which had been 
thrown into a pond near the castle. The grateful 
ducks bring up the key from the bottom. The 
third task is the most difficult. In one of the 
interior chambers of the castle there are three 
marble images — three princesses, namely, who had 
been turned into stone. Before the spell took effect 
they had partaken, respectively, of sugar, sirup, and 
honey. To restore them to life it is necessary 
to discover which one had eaten the honey. The 
Queen Bee comes in with all her swarm and 
lights on the lips of the youngest and so solves the 
problem. The enchantment is immediately dis- 
solved. All these stories illustrate kindness to ani- 
mals. 

Among stories which illustrate the respect due to 



76 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

the feelings of servants may be mentioned the tale of 
Faithful John, who understood the language of the 
ravens and saved his master from the dangers of the 
red horse, etc., a story which in addition impresses the 
lesson that we should confide in persons who have 
been found trustworthy, even if we do not understand 
their motives. In the popular tale of Cinderella the 
points especially to be noted are : The pious devotion 
of Cinderella to her mother's memory, and the fact 
that the poor kitchen drudge, underneath the grime 
and ashes which disfigure her, possesses qualities 
which raise her far above the proud daughters of 
the house. The lesson taught by this story that we 
should distinguish intrinsic worth from the acci- 
dents of rank and condition, is one which can not 
be impressed too early or too deeply. 

Under the heading of hrotherly and sisterly love 
belongs the lovely tale of Snow-white. The little 
dwarfs are to all intents and purposes her brothers. 
They receive and treat her as a sister, and she returns 
their affection in kind. 

The story of the Twelve Brothers, whom their 
sister redeems by seven years of silence at the peril 
of her own life, is another instance of tenderest sis- 
terly devotion combined with self-control. This 
story, however, needs to be slightly altered. In 
place of the cruel father (we must not mention cruel 
fathers) who has got ready twelve coffins for his 
sons, in order that all the wealth of his kingdom 
may descend to his daughter, let us substitute the 
steward of the palace, who hopes by slaying the 



THE USE OP FAIRY TALES. 77 

sons and winning the hand of the daughter, to be- 
come king himself. 

Finally the story of Red Eiding Hood illus- 
trates the cardinal virtue of childhood — obedience to 
'parents. Children must not loiter on the way when 
they are sent on errands. Eed Riding Hood loiters, 
and hence all the mischief which follows. She is 
sent to bring wine and cake to her grandmother. 
The example of such attentions as this serves to quick- 
en in children the sentiment of reverence for the 
aged. Children learn reverence toward their parents 
in part by the reverence which these display toward 
the grandparents. Another point is that Red Rid- 
ing Hood, to quiet her conscience, when she strays 
from the straight path deceives herself as to her 
motives. She says, " I will also gather a bunch 
of wild flowers to please grandmother." But her 
real purpose is to enjoy the freedom of the woods, 
and the proof is that presently she forgets all about 
grandmother. There is one objection that has some- 
times been urged against this story, viz., the part 
which the wolf plays in it. But the wolf is not 
really treated as a hostile or fearful being. He 
meets Red Riding Hood on the way, and they chat 
confidentially together. He appears rather in the 
light of a trickster. But, it is objected, that he de- 
vours the grandmother and, later on. Red Riding 
Hood herself. Yery true ; but the curious fact is 
that, when his belly is cut open, the grandmother 
and Red Riding Hood come out intact. They have 
evidently not been injured. Children have very 



78 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

defective notions of the human body, with the ex- 
ception of such external parts as hands, feet, and 
face. In an examination recently conducted by 
Prof. G. Stanley Hall in regard to the contents of 
childrens' minds at the time they enter school, it 
was found that ninety per cent of those questioned 
had no idea where the heart is located, eighty-one 
per cent did not know anything about the lungs, 
ninety per cent could not tell where their ribs are 
situated, etc. Of the internal organs children have 
no idea. Hence when the story says that the 
grandmother is swallowed by the wolf, the impres- 
sion created is that she has been fol"ced down into 
a sort of dark hole, and that her situation, while 
rather uncomfortable, no doubt, is not otherwise 
distressing. The ideas of torn and mangled flesh 
are not suggested. Hence the act of devouring 
arouses no feeling of horror, and the story of Red 
Riding Hood, that prime favorite of all young 
children, may be related without any apprehension 
as to its moral effect. 

Then there are other stories, such as that of the 
man who went abroad to learn the art of shudder- 
ing — an excellent example of bravery ; the story of 
the seven Suabians — a persiflage of cowardice ; the 
story of the MarienJcind which contains a whole- 
some lesson against obstinacy, etc. I have not, 
of course, attempted to cover the whole ground, 
but only to mention a few examples sufiicient to 
show along what lines the selection may be made. 
The ethical interests peculiar to childhood are the 



THE USE OF FAIRY TALES. 79 

heads under wliicli the whole material can be classi- 
fied. 

The value of the fairy tales is that they stimulate 
the imagination ; that they reflect the unbroken 
communion of human life with the life universal, as 
in beasts, fishes, trees, flowers, and stars ; and that 
incidentally, but all the more powerfully on that ac- 
count, they quicken the moral sentiments. 

Let us avail ourselves freely of the treasures 
which are thus placed at our disposal. Let us wel- 
come das Mdrclien into our primary course of moral 
training, that with its gentle bands, woven of " morn- 
ing mist and morning glory," it may help to lead our 
children into the bright realms of the ideal. 



VII. 
THE USE OF FABLES. 

The collection of fables which figures under the 
name of ^sop has to a very remarkable degree 
maintained its popularity among children, and many 
of its typical characters have been adopted into cur- 
rent literature, such as the Dog in the Manger, the 
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, King Log, and King 
Stork, and others. Recent researches have brought 
to light the highly interesting fact that these fables 
are of Asiatic origin. A collection of Indian and, 
it is .believed, Buddhist fables and stories traveled 
at at early period into Persia, where it became 
known as the Pancha-Tantra. The Pancha-Tantra 
was translated into Arabic, and became the source 
of the voluminous Kalilah-wa-Dimnah literature. The 
Arabic tales in turn migrated into Europe at the 
time of the Crusades and were rendered into Greek, 
Hebrew, and Latin. In this form they became ac- 
cessible to the nations of Europe, were extensively 
circulated, and a collection of them was wrongly, 
but very naturally, ascribed to a famous story-teller 
of the ancient Greeks — i. e., to ^sop. The arguments 
on which this deduction is based may be found in 
Kliys Davids's introduction to his English transla- 

(80) 



THE USE OF FABLES. 81 

tion of the Jataka Tales.* This author speaks of 
^sop's fables as a first moral lesson-book for our 
children in the West. We shall have to consider in 
how far this description is correct — that is to say, in 
how far we can use the fables for moral purposes. 
The point to be kept in mind is their Asiatic origin, 
as this will at once help us to separate the fables 
which we can use from those which must be reject- 
ed. A discrimination of this sort is absolutely neces- 
sary. I am of the opinion that it is a serious mis- 
take to place the whole collection as it stands in the 
hands of children. 

To decide this question we must study the milieu 
in which the fables arose, the spirit which they 
breathe, the conditions which they reflect. The 
conditions they reflect are those of an Oriental des- 
potism. They depict a state of society in which the 
people are cruelly oppressed by tyrannical rulers, 
and the weak are helpless in the hands of the strong. 
The spirit which they breathe is, on the whole, one 
of patient and rather hopeless submission. The 
effect upon the reader as soon as he has caught this 
clew, this Leitmotiv, which occurs in a hundred vari- 
ations, is very saddening. I must substantiate this 
cardinal point by a somewhat detailed analysis. 
Let us take first the fable of the Kite and the 
Pigeons. A kite had been sailing in the air for 
many days near a pigeon-house with the intention 



* Buddhist Birth Stories ; or Jataka Tales, translated by T. 
W. Rhys Davids. 
6 



82 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN, 

of seizing the pigeons ; at last he had recourse to 
stratagem. He expressed his deep concern at their 
unjust and unreasonable suspicions of himself, as if 
he intended to do them an injury. He declared 
that, on the contrary, he had nothing more at heart 
than. the defense of their ancient rights and liber- 
ties, and ended by proposing that they should accept 
him as their protector, their king. The poor, simple 
pigeons consented. The kite took the coronation 
oath in a very solemn manner. But much time had 
not elapsed before the good kite declared it to be a 
part of the king's prerogative to devour a pigeon now 
and then, and the various members of his family 
adhered to the same view of royal privilege. The 
miserable pigeons exclaimed : " Ah, we deserve no 
better. Why did we let him in ! " 

The fable of the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing con- 
veys essentially the same idea. The fable of the 
Lion and the Deer illustrates the exorbitant exactions 
practiced by despots. A fat deer was divided into 
four parts. His majesty the lion proposed that 
they be suitably apportioned. The first part he 
claimed for himself on account of his true hereditary 
descent from the royal family of Lion ; the second 
he considered properly his own because he had 
headed the hunt ; the third he took in virtue of his 
prerogative ; and finally he assumed a menacing atti- 
tude, and dared any one to disjDute his right to the 
fourth part also. 

In the fable of the Sick Lion and the Fox, the fox 
says : " I see the footprints of beasts who have gone 



THE USE OP FABLES. 83 

into the cave, but of none that have come out." 
The fable of the Cat and the Mice expresses the 
same thought, namely, that it is necessary to be ever 
on one's guard against the mighty oppressors even 
when their power seems for the time to have de- 
serted them. The cat pretends to be dead, hoping 
by this means to entice the mice within her reach. 
A cunning old mouse peeps over the edge of the 
shelf, and says : " Aha, my good friend, are you 
there ? I would not trust myself with you though 
your skin were stuft'ed with straw." 

The fable of King Log and King Stork shows 
what a poor choice the people have in the matter of 
their kings. First they have a fool for their king, 
a mere log, and they are discontented. Then Stork 
ascends the throne, and he devours them. It would 
have been better if they had put up with the fool. 
The injustice of despotic rulers is exemplified in 
the fable of the Kite and the Wolf. The kite and 
the wolf are seated in judgment. The dog comes 
before them to sue the sheep for debt. Kite and 
wolf, without waiting for the evidence, give sen- 
tence for the plaintiif, who immediately tears the 
poor sheep into pieces and divides the spoil with 
the judges. The sort of thanks which the people 
get when they are foolish enough to come to the 
assistance of their masters, is illustrated by the con- 
duct of the wolf toward the crane. The wolf hap- 
pened to have a bone sticking in his throat, and, 
howling with pain, promised a reward to any one 
who should relieve him. At last the crane ventured 



84 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

his long neck into the wolf's throat and plucked out 
the bone. But when he asked for his reward, the 
wolf glared savagely upon him, and said : " Is it not 
enough that I refrained from biting off your head ? " 
How dangerous it is to come at all into close con- 
tact with the mighty, is shown in the fable of the 
Earthen and the Brazen Pot. The brazen pot offers 
to protect the earthen one as they float down stream. 
" Oh," replies the latter, " keep as far off as ever 
you can, if you please ; for, whether the stream 
dashes you against me or me against you, I am sure 
to be the sufferer." 

The fables which we have considered have for 
their theme the character of the strong as exhib- 
ited in their dealings with the weak. A second 
group is intended to recommend a certain policy to 
be pursued by the weak in self-protection. This 
policy consists either in pacifying the strong by 
giving up to them voluntarily what they want, or in 
flight, or, if that be impossible, in uncomplaining 
submission. The first expedient is recommended in 
the fable of the Beaver. A beaver who was being 
hard pressed by a hunter and knew not how to es- 
cape, suddenly, with a great effort, bit off the part 
which the hunter desired, and, throwing it toward 
him, by this means escaped with his life. The ex- 
pedient of flight is recommended in the fable of 
Reynard and the Cat. Reynard and the cat one day 
were talking politics in the forest. The fox boasted 
that though things might turn out never so badly, he 
had still a thousand tricks to play before they should 



THE USE OF FABLES. ' 85 

catch him. The cat said : " I have but one trick, and 
if that does not succeed I am undone." Presently 
a pack of hounds came upon them full crj. The 
cat ran up a tree and hid herself among the top 
branches. The fox, who had not been able to get 
out of sight, was overtaken despite his thousand 
tricks and torn to pieces by the hounds. The fable 
of the Oak and the Reed teaches the policy of utter, 
uncomplaining submission. The oak refuses to 
bend, and is broken. The supple reed yields to the 
blast, and is safe. Is it not a little astonishing that 
this fable should so often be related to children as 
if it contained a moral which they ought to take 
to heart? To make it apply at all, it is usually 
twisted from its proper signification and explained 
as meaning that one should not be fool-hardy, not at- 
tempt to struggle against overwhelming odds. But 
this is not the true interj)retation. The oak is by 
nature strong and firm, while it is the nature of the 
reed to bend to every wind. The fable springs out 
of the experience of a people who have found re- 
sistance against oppression useless. And this sort 
of teaching we can not, of course, wish to give to 
our children. I should certainly prefer that a child 
of mine should take the oak, and not the reed, for his 
pattern. The same spirit is again inculcated in the 
fable of the "Wanton Calf. The wanton calf sneers 
at the poor ox who all day long bears the heavy 
yoke patiently upon his neck. But in the evening 
it turns out that the ox is unyoked, while the calf is 
butchered. The choice seems to lie between subservi- 



86 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

ency and destruction. The fable of the Old "Woman 
and her Maids suggests the same conclusion, with 
the warning added that it is useless to rise against 
the agents of tyranny so long as the tyrants them- 
selves can not be overthrown. The cock in the 
fable represents the agents of oppression. The 
killing of the cock serves only to bring the mistress 
herself on the scene, and the lot of the servants be- 
comes in consequence very much harder than it had 
been before. 

We have now considered two groups of fables : 
those which depict the character of the mighty, 
and those which treat of the proper policy of the 
weak. The subject of the third group is, the con- 
solations of the weak. These are, first, that even 
tyrannical masters are to a certain extent dependent 
upon their inferiors, and can be punished if they go 
too far ; secondly, that the mighty occasionally come 
to grief in consequence of dissensions among them- 
selves ; thirdly, that fortune is fickle. A lion is 
caught in the toils, and would perish did not a little 
mouse come to his aid by gnawing asunder the 
knots and fastenings. The bear robs the bees of 
their honey, but is punished and rendered almost 
desperate by their stings. An eagle carries off the 
cub of a fox ; but the fox, snatching a fire-brand, 
threatens to set the eagle's nest on fire, and thus 
forces him to restore her young one. This is evi- 
dently a fable of insurrection. The fable of the 
Viper and the File shows that it is not safe to attack 
the wrong person — in other words, that tyrants some- 



THE USE OP FABLES. 87 

times come to grief by singling out for persecution 
some one who is strong enough to resist them though 
they httle suspect it. The fable of the four bulls 
shows the effect of dissensions among the mighty. 
Four bulls had entered into a close alliance, and agreed 
to keep always near one another. A lion fomented 
jealousies among them. The bulls grew distrustful 
of one another, and at last parted company. The 
lion had now obtained his end, and seized and de- 
voured them singly. The fickleness of fortune is the 
theme of the fable of the Horse and the Ass. The 
horse, richly caparisoned and champing liis foaming 
bridle, insults an ass who moves along under a heavy 
load. Soon after the horse is wounded, and, being 
unfit for military service, is sold to a carrier. The 
ass now taunts the proud animal with his fallen 
estate. The horse in this fable is the type of many 
an Eastern vizier, who has basked for a time in the 
sunshine of a despot's favor only to be suddenly and 
ignominiously degraded. The ass in the fable repre- 
sents the people. There remains a fourth group of 
fables, which satirize certain mean or ridiculous 
types of characters, such as are apt to appear in 
social conditions of the kind we have described. 
Especially do the fables make a target of the folly 
of those who affect the manners of the aristocratic 
class, or who try to crowd in where they are not 
wanted, or who boast of their high connections. 
The frog puffs himself up so that he may seem as 
large as the ox, until he bursts. The mouse aspires 
to marry the young lioness, and is in fact well re- 



88 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

ceived ; but the young lady inadvertently places 
her foot on her suitor and crushes him. The jack- 
daw picks up feathers which have fallen from the 
peacocks, sticks them among his own, and introduces 
himself into the assembly of those proud birds. 
They find him out, strip him of his plumes, and 
with their sharp bills punish him as he deserves. A 
fly boasts that he frequents the most distinguished 
company, and that he is on familiar terms with the 
king, the priests, and the nobility. Many a time, 
he says, he has entered the royal chamber, has sat 
upon the altar, and has even enjoyed the privilege 
of kissing the lips of the most beautiful maids of 
honor. " Yes," replies an ant, " but in what capaci- 
ty are you admitted among all these great people ? 
One and all regard you as a nuisance, and the sooner 
they can get rid of you the better they are pleased." 
Most of the fables which thus far have been 
mentioned we can not use. The discovery of their 
Asiatic origin sheds a new, keen light upon their 
meaning. They breathe, in many cases, a spirit of 
fear, of abject subserviency, of hopeless pessimism. 
Can we desire to inoculate the young with this spirit ? 
The question may be asked why fables are so popular 
with boys. I should say. Because school-boy society 
reproduces in miniature to a certain extent the social 
conditions which are reflected in the fables. Among 
unregenerate school-boys there often exists a kind of 
despotism, not the less degrading because petty. The 
strong are pitted against the weak — witness the fag- 
ging system in the English schools — and their mutual 



THE USE OP FABLES, 89 

antagonism produces in both the characteristic vices 
which we have noted above. The psychological study 
of school-boy society has been only begun, but even 
what lies on the surface will, I think, bear out this 
remark. ]S[ow it has come to be one of the common- 
places of educational literature, that the individual 
of to-day must pass through the same stages of evolu- 
tion as the human race as a whole. But it should 
not be forgotten that the advance of civilization de- 
pends on two conditions : first, that the course of 
evolution be accelerated, that the time allowed to the 
successive stages be shortened ; and, secondly, that 
the unworthy and degrading elements which entered 
into the process of evolution in the past, and at the 
time were insej)arable from it, be now eliminated. 
Thus the fairy-tales which correspond to the myth- 
making epoch in human history must be purged of 
the dross of superstition which still adheres to them, 
and the fables which correspond to the age of primi- 
tive despotisms must be cleansed of the immoral 
elements they still embody. 

The fables which are fit for use may be divided 
into two classes: those which give illustrations of 
evil,* the effect of which on the young should be 
to arouse disapprobation, and those which present 
types of virtue. The following is a list of some of 
the prinicpal ones in each category : 

* I remarked above that fables should be excluded if the 
moral they inculcate is bad, not if they depict what is bad. In 
the latter case they often may serve a useful purpose. 



90 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

An Iiistance of Selfishness. The porcupine hav- 
ing begged for hospitality and having been invited 
into a nest of snakes, inconveniences the inmates and 
finally crowds them out. When they remonstrate, 
he says, " Let those quit the place that do not like 
it." 

Injustice. The fable of the Kite and the Wolf, 
mentioned above. 

Improvidence. The fable of the Ant and the 
Grasshopper ; also the fable entitled One Swallow 
does not make Summer, and the fable of the Man 
who Killed the Goose that laid the Golden Eggs. 

Ingratitude. The fable of the snake which bit 
the countryman who had warmed it in his breast. 

Cowardice. The fable of the Stag and the 
Fawn, and of the Hares in the Storm. 

Yanity. The fables of the Peacock and the 
Crane, and of the Crow who lost his Cheese by lis- 
tening to the flattery of the fox. 

Contemptuous Self-confidence. The Hare and 
the Tortoise. 

The Evil Influence of Bad Compariy. The 
Husbandman and the Stork. 

Cruelty to Animals. The Fowler and the Ring- 
dove ; the Hawk and the Pigeons. 

Greediness. The Dog and the Shadow. 

lying. The fable of the boy who cried 
"Wolf!" 

Bragging. The fable of the Ass in the Lion's 
Skin. 

Deceit. The fable of the Fox without a Tail. 



THE USE OF FxiBLES. 91 

Disingenuousness. The fable of the Sour 
Grapes. 

A Discontented Spirit. The fable of the Pea- 
cock's Complaint. 

Eqiiol Graces ai^e not given to all. The fable of 
the Ass who leaped into his Master's Lap. 

Borroioed Plumes. The fable of the Jackdaw 
and the Peacocks, mentioned above. 

Malice. The fable of the Dog in the Manger, 
who would not eat, neither let others eat. 

Breaking Faith. The fable of the Traveler and 
the Bear. 

To Fan Animosity is even Worse than to Quar- 
rel. The fable of the Trumpeter. 

The value of these fables, as has been said, con- 
sists in the reaction which they call forth in the 
minds of the pupils. Sometimes this reaction finds 
expression in the fable itself ; sometimes the particu- 
lar vice is merely depicted in its nakedness, and it 
becomes the business of the teacher distinctly to 
evoke the feeling of disapprobation, and to have it 
expressly stated in words. The words tend to fix 
the feeling. Often, when a child has committed 
some fault, it is useful to refer by name to the fable 
that fits it. As, when a boy has made room in his 
seat for another, and the other crowds him out, the 
mere mention of the fable of the Porcupine is a 
telling rebuke ; or the fable of the Hawk and the 
Pigeons may be called to mind when a boy has been 
guilty of mean excuses. On the same principle that 
angry children are sometimes taken before a mirror 



92 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

to show tliem liow ugly tliey look. Tlie fable is a 
kind of mirror for the vices of the young. 

Of the fables that illustrate virtuous conduct, I 
mention that of Hercules and the Cart-driver, which 
teaches self-reliance. Hercules helps the driver as 
soon as the latter has put his own shoulders to the 
wheel. Also the fable of the Lark. So long as the 
farmer depends on his neighbors, or his kinsmen, 
the lark is not afraid; but when he proposes to 
buckle to himself, she advises her young that it is 
time to seek another field. The fable of the Wind 
and the Sun shows that kindness succeeds where 
rough treatment would fail. The fable of the Bun- 
dle of Sticks exemplifies the value of harmony. 
The fable of the Wolf, whom the dog tries to in- 
duce to enter civilization, expresses the sentiment 
that lean liberty is to be preferred to pampered 
servitude. The fable of the Old Hound teaches 
regard for old servants. Finally, the fable of the 
Horse and the Loaded Ass, and of the Dove and the 
Ant, show that kindness pays on selfish princi- 
ples. The horse refuses to share the ass's burden ; 
the ass falls dead under his load ; in consequence, 
the horse has to bear the whole of it. On the other 
hand the dove rescues the ant from drowning, and 
the ant in turn saves the dove from the fowler's net. 

The last remark throws light on the point of 
view from wliich the fables contemplate good and 
evil. It is to be noted that a really moral spirit is 
wanting in them ; the moral motives are not ap- 
pealed to. The appeal throughout is to the bare 



THE USE OF FABLES. 93 

motive of self-interest. Do not lie, because you 
will be found out, and will be left in the lurcli when 
you depend for help on the confidence of others. 
Do not indulge in vanity, because you will make 
yourself ridiculous. Do not try to appear like a 
lion when you can not support the character, be- 
cause people will find out that you are only an ass. 
Do not act ungratefully, because you will be thrust 
out of doors. Even when good conduct is incul- 
cated, it is on the ground that it pays. Be self-re- 
liant, because if you help yourself others will help 
you. Be kind, because by gentle means you can 
gain your purpose better than by harshness. Agree 
with your neighbors, because you can then, like the 
bundle of sticks, resist aggression from without. 
That lying is wrong on principle ; that greediness is 
shameful, whether you lose your cheese or not ; that 
kindness is blessed, even when it does not bring a 
material reward ; that it is lovely for neighbors to 
dwell together in peace, is nowhere indicated. The 
beauty and the holiness of right conduct lie utterly 
beyond the horizon of the fable, JSTevertheless, as 
we have seen when speaking of the efficient motives 
of conduct, self-interest as a motive should not be un- 
derrated, but should be allowed the influence which 
belongs to it as an auxiliary to the moral motive. 
It is well, it is necessary, for children to learn that 
lying, besides being in itself disgraceful, does also 
entail penalties of a palpable sort ; that vanity and 
self-conceit, besides being immoral, are also pun- 
ished by the contempt of one's fellows ; that those 



94: MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

who are unkind, as tlie horse was to the ass, may 
have to bear the ass's burden. The checks and 
curbs supphed by such considerations as these serve 
the purpose of strengthening the weak conscience 
of the young, and are not to be dispensed with, pro- 
vided always they are treated not as substitutes for 
but as auxiharies to the moral motives, properly 
speaking. 

As to the place in the primary course which I 
have assigned to the fables, I have the following re- 
mark to offer : In speaking of fairy tales, it was 
stated that the moral element should be touched on 
incidentally, and that it should not be separated 
from the other, the naturalistic elements. The 
pedagogical reason which leads me to assign to the 
fables the second place in the course, is that each 
fable deals exclusively with one moral quality, 
which is thus isolated and held up to be contem- 
plated. In the stories which will occupy the third 
place a number of moral qualities are presented in 
combination. We have, therefore, what seems to 
be a logical and progressive order — first, fairy tales 
in which the moral is still blended with other ele- 
ments ; secondly, a single moral quality set off by 
itself ; then, a combination of such qualities. 

The peculiar value of the fables is that they are 
instantaneous photographs, which reproduce, as it 
were, in a single flash of light, some one aspect of 
human nature, and which, excluding everything 
else, permit the entire attention to be fixed on that 
one. 



THE USE OP FABLES. 95 

As to the method of handling them, I should say 
to the teacher : Relate the fable ; let the pupil repeat 
it in his own words, making sure that the essential 
points are stated correctly. By means of questions 
elicit a clean-cut expression of the point which the 
fable illustrates ; then ask the pupil to give out of 
his experience other instances illustrating the same 
point. This is precisely the method pursued in the 
so-called primary object lessons. The child, for in- 
stance, having been shown a red ball, is asked to 
state the color of the ball, and then to name other 
objects of the same color ; or to give the shape of 
the ball, and then to name other objects having the 
same shape. In like manner, when the pupil has 
heard the fable of the Fox and the Wolf, and has 
gathered from it that compassion when expressed 
merely in words is useless, and that it must lead to 
deeds to be really praiseworthy, it will be easy for 
him out of his own experience to multiply instances 
which illustrate the same truth. The search for in- 
stances makes the point of the fable clearer, while 
the expression of the thought in precise language, 
on which the teacher should always insist, tends to 
drive it home. It will be our aim in the present 
course of lectures to apply the methods of object 
teaching, now generally adopted in other branches, 
to the earhest moral instruction of children — an un- 
dertaking, of course, not without difficulties. 



VIII. 
SUPPLEMENTAEY REMARKS ON FABLES. 

Apart from the collection wliicli figures under 
the name of -^sop, there are other fables, notably 
the so-called Jataka tales, which deserve attention. 
The Jataka tales contain deep truths, and are calcu- 
lated to impress lessons of great moral beauty. The 
tale of the Merchant of Seri, who gave up all that he 
had in exchange for a golden dish, embodies much 
the same idea as the parable of the Priceless Pearl, 
in the New Testament. The tale of the Measures of 
Kice illustrates the importance of a true estimate of 
values. The tale of the Banyan Deer, which offered 
its life to save a roe and her young, illustrates 
self-sacrifice of the noblest sort. The Kulavaka- 
Jataka contains the thought that a forgiving spirit 
toward one's enemies disarms even the evil-minded. 
The tale of the Partridge, the Monkey, and the Ele- 
phant teaches that the best seats belong not to the 
nobles or the priests, to the rich or the learned, not 
even to the most pious, but that reverence and serv- 
ice and respect and civility are to be paid according 
to age, and for the aged the best seat, the best water, 
the best rice, are to be reserved. The tale of Nanda, 
or the Buried Gold, is a rebuke to that base inso- 
lence which vulgar natures often exhibit when they 

(96) 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON FABLES, 97 

possess a temporary advantage. The tale of the 
Sandy Road is one of the finest in the collection. 
It pictures to ns a caravan wandering through the 
desert under the starlight. The guide, whose duty 
it was to pilot them through this sea of sand, has, 
it appears, fallen asleep at his post from excessive 
weariness, and at dawn the travelers discover that 
they have gone astray, and that far and wide no wa- 
ter is in sight wherewith to quench their burning 
thirst. At this moment, however, the leader espies 
a small tuft of grass on the face of the desert, and, 
reasoning that water must be flowing somewhere 
underneath, inspires his exhausted followers to 
new exertions. A hole sixty feet deep is dug un- 
der his direction, but at length they come upon 
hard rock, and can dig no farther. But even then 
he does not yield to despair. Leaping down, he ap- 
plies his ear to the rock. Surely, it is water that 
he hears gurgling underneath ! One more efEort, 
he cries, and we are saved ! But of all his follow- 
ers one only had strength or courage enough left 
to obey. This one strikes a heavy blow, the rock is 
split open, and lo ! the living water gushes upward 
in a flood. The lesson is that of perseverance and 
presence of mind in desperate circumstances. The 
tale entitled Holding to the Truth narrates the sad 
fate of a merchant who suffered himself to be de- 
ceived by a mirage into the belief that water was 
near, and emptied the jars which he carried with 
him in order to reach the pleasant land the sooner. 
The Jataka entitled On True Divinity contains a 



98 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

very beautiful story about tliree brothers, the Sun 
prince, the Moon prince, and the future Buddha or 
Bodisat. The king, tlieir father, expelled the Moon 
prince and the future Buddha in order to secure the 
succession to the Sun prince alone. But the Sun 
prince could not bear to be separated from his 
brothers, and secretly followed them into exile. 
They journeyed together until they came to a cer- 
tain lake. This lake was inhabited by an evil spirit, 
to whom powe-r had been given to destroy all who 
entered his territory unless they could redeem their 
lives by answering the question, "What is truly di- 
vine ? " So the Sun prince was asked first, and he 
answered, " The sun and the moon and the gods 
are divine. But that not being the correct answer, 
the evil spirit seized and imprisoned him in his 
cave. Then the Moon prince was asked, and he 
answered, " The far-spreading sky is called divine." 
But he, too, was carried away to the same place to 
be destroyed. Then the future Buddha was asked, 
and he answered : " Give ear, then, attentively, and 
hear what divine nature is ; and he uttered the 
words — 

" The pure in heart who fear to sin, 
The good, kindly in word and deed, 
These are the beings in the world 
WlK)se nature should be called divine." 

And when the evil spirit heard these words, he 
bowed, and said : " I will give up to you one of your 
brothers." Then the future Buddha said, " Give me 
the life of my brother, the Sun prince, for it is on his 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON FABLES. 99 

account that we have been driven awaj from onr 
home and thrust into exile." The evil spirit was 
overcome by this act of generosity, and said, " Verily, 
O teacher, thou not only knowest what is divine, 
but hast acted divinely." And he gave him the life 
of both his brothers, the Sun prince as well as the 
Moon prince. 

I could not resist the temptation of relating 
a few of these tales. They are, as every one must 
admit, nobly conceived, lofty in meaning, and many 
a helpful sermon might be preached from them as 
texts. But, of course, not all are fit to be used in 
a primary course. Some of them are, some are 
not. The teacher will have no difficulty in making 
the right selection. To the former class belongs 
also 'No. 28 of the collection,* which is excellently 
adapted to impress the lesson of kindness to ani- 
mals. Long ago the Buddha came to life in the 
shape of a powerful bull. His master, a Brahman, 
asserted that this bull of his could move a hundred 
loaded carts ranged in a row and bound together. 
Being challenged to prove his assertion, he bathed 
the bull, gave him scented rice, hung a garland of 
flowers around his neck, and yoked him to the first 
cart. Then he raised his whip and called out, " Gee 
up, you brute. Drag them along, you wretch ! " The 
bull said to himself, " He calls me wretch ; I am no 
wretch." And keeping his forelegs as firm as steel, 
he stood perfectly still. Thereupon the Brahman, his 

* Buddhist Birth Stories ; or Jataka Tales. 



100 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

master, "was compelled to pay a forfeit of a thou- 
sand pieces of gold because he had not made good 
his boast. After a while the bull said to the Brah- 
man, who seemed very much dispirited : " Brahman, 
I have lived a long time in your house. Have I ever 
broken any pots, or have I rubbed against the walls, 
or have I made the walks around the premises un- 
clean ? " " Never, my dear," said the Brahman. 
" Then why did 3'ou call me wretch ? But if you 
will never call me wretch again, you shall have two 
thousand pieces for the one thousand you have 
lost." The Brahman, hearing this, called his neigh- 
bors together, set up one hundred loaded carts as 
before, then seated himself on the pole, stroked 
the bull on the back, and called out, " Gee up, my 
beauty ! Drag them along, my beauty ! " And the 
bull, with a mighty effort, dragged along the whole 
hundred carts, heavily loaded though they were. 
The bystanders were greatly astonished, and the 
Brahman received two thousand pieces on account 
of the wonderful feat performed by the bull. 

The 30th Jiitaka corresponds to the fable of the 
Ox and the Calf in the ^sop collection. The 33d, like 
the fable of the Bundle of Sticks, teaches the lesson of 
unity, but in a form a little nearer to the understand- 
ing of children. Long ago, when Brahmadatta was 
reigning in Benares, the future Buddha came to life 
as a quail. At that time there was a fowler who 
used to go to the place where the quails dwelt and 
imitate their cry ; and when they had assembled, 
he would throw his net over them. But the Buddha 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON FABLES. 101 

said to the quails : " In future, as soon as lie has 
thrown the net over us, let each thrust his head 
through a mesh of the net, then all lift it together, 
carry it off to some bush, and escape from under- 
neath it," And they did so and were saved. But 
one day a quail trod unawares on the head of an- 
other, and a disgraceful quarrel ensued. The next 
time the fowler threw his net over them, each of 
the quails pretended that the others were leaving him 
to bear the greatest strain, and cried out, " You 
others begin, and then I will help." The conse- 
quence was that no one began, and the net was not 
raised, and the fowler bao-p-ed them all. The 26th 
Jataka enforces the truth that evil communications 
corrupt good manners, and contains more particu- 
larly a warning against listening to the conversation 
of wicked people. Thus much concerning the Ja- 
taka tales. 

There exists also a collection of Hindu fairy 
tales and fables, gathered from oral tradition by M. 
Frere, and published under the title of Old Deccan 
Days. A few of these are very charming, and well 
adapted for our purpose. For example, the fable of 
King Lion and the Sly Little Jackals. The story is 
told with delightful naivete. Singh-Rajah, the lion- 
king, is very hungry. He has already devoured all 
the jackals of the forest, and only a young married 
couple, who are extremely fond of each other, re- 
main. The little jackal-wife is terribly frightened 
when she hears in their immediate vicinity the 
roar of Singh-Eajah. But the young husband tries 



102 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

to comfort lier, and to save their lives lie hits on 
the following expedient : He makes her go v^dth 
him straight to the cave of the terrible lion. Singh- 
Kajah no sooner sees them than he exclaims : " It 
is well you have arrived at last. Come here quickly, 
so that I may eat you." The husband says : " Yes, 
your Majesty, we are entirely ready to do as you 
bid us, and, in fact, we should have come long ago, 
as in duty bound, to satisfy your royal appetite, but 
there is another Singh-Eajah mightier than you in 
the forest, who would not let us come." " What ! " 
says the lion, " another Singh-Rajah mightier than 
I ! That is impossible." " Oh ! but it is a fact," 
say the young couple in a breath ; " and he is 
really much more terrible than you are." " Show 
him to me, then," says Smgh-Kajah, "and I will 
prove to you that what you say is false — that there is 
no one to be compared with me in might." So 
the little jackals ran on together ahead of the lion, 
until they reached a deep well. " He is in there," 
they said, pointing to the well. The lion looked 
down angrily and saw his own image, the image 
of an angry lion glaring back at him. He shook 
his mane ; the other did the same. Singh-Rajah 
thereupon, unable to contain himself, leaped down 
to light his competitor, and, of course, was 
drowned. The fable clothes in childlike language 
the moral that anger is blind, and that the objects 
which excite our anger are often merely the out- 
ward reflections of our own passions. In the fable 
of the Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges, 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON FABLES. 103 

we have a lesson against ingratitude, and also against 
useless destruction of animal life. In the fable of 
the Camel and the Jackal, the latter does not ap- 
pear in the same favorable light as above. The 
jackal and the camel were good friends. One day 
the jackal said to his companion : " I know of a 
field of sugar-cane on the other side of the river, 
and near by there are plenty of crabs and small 
fishes. The crabs and fishes will do for me, while 
you can make a fine dinner off the sugar-cane. If 
there were only a way of getting across ! " The 
camel offered to swim across, taking the jackal 
on his back, and in this way they reached the op- 
posite bank. The jackal ate greedily, and had soon 
finished his meal ; thereupon he began to run up 
and down, and to exercise his voice, screaming 
lustily. The camel begged him to desist, but in 
vain. Presently the cries of the jackal roused the 
villagers. They came with sticks and cudgels and 
cruelly beat the camel, and drove him out of the 
field before he had had time to eat more than a few 
mouthfuls. When the men were gone at last, the 
jackal said, " Let us now go home." " Yery well," 
said the camel, " climb on my back." "When they 
were midway between the two banks, the camel said 
to the jackal : " "Why did you make such a noise 
and spoil my dinner, bringing on those cruel men, 
who beat me so that every bone in my body aches ? 
Did I not beg you to stop ? " " Oh," said the 
jackal, " I meant no harm. I was only singing a 
bit. I always sing after dinner, just for amuse- 



104 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

ment/' They had by this time reached the place 
where the water was deepest. "Well," said the 
camel, " I also like innocent amusements. For in- 
stance, it is my custom to lie on my back after 
dinner and to stretch myself a bit." "With that 
he turned over, and the jackal fell into the stream. 
He swallowed pailfuls of water, and it was only 
with the utmost difficulty that he succeeded in 
reaching the bank. He had received a salutary 
lesson on the subject of inconsiderate selfishness — a 
fault very common with children, which such a 
story as this may help to coi*rect. 

As to the modern fables, I fear they will yield 
us but a scanty harvest. The fables of La Fontaine, 
where they depart from ^sopian originals, are 
hardly suitable for children, and those of the Ger- 
man poet Gellert impress me, on the whole, in the 
same way, though a few of them may be added to 
our stock. For instance, the fable of the Green- 
finch and the Nightingale. These two birds oc- 
cupy the same cage before the window of Damon's 
house. Presently the voice of the nightingale is 
heard, and then ceases. Tlie father leads his little 
boy before the cage and asks him which of the 
two he believes to have been the sweet musician, 
the brightly colored greenfinch or the outwardly 
unattractive nightingale. The child immediately 
points to the former, and is then instructed as to his 
error. The lesson, of course, is that fine clothes 
and real worth do not always go together. The 
fable of the Blind and the Lame Man teaches the 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON FABLES. 105 

advantages of co-operation. The Carriage Horse 
and the Cart Horse is a fable for the rich. Possi- 
bly the fable of the Peasant and his Son, which is 
directed against lies of exaggeration, may also be 
utilized, though I realize that there are objections 
to it. 



IX. 
STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 

Introduction. — It will have been noticed tliat in 
choosing our illustrative material we have confined 
ourselves to what may be called classical literature. 
The German Mdrclien has lived in the traditions of 
the German people for centuries, and is as fresh to- 
day as Snow-white herself when she woke from her 
trance. The fables, as has been shown, have been 
adopted into the language and literature of Persia, 
of Arabia, of the nations of Europe, and are still 
found in the hands of our own children. Let us 
continue to pursue the same method of selection. 
Instead of relying on juvenile literature just pro- 
duced, or attempting to write moralizing stories 
specially adapted for the purpose in hand, let us 
continue, without excluding invention altogether, 
to rely mainly on that which has stood the test of 
time. In the third part of our primary course we 
shall use selected stories from the classical literature 
of the Hebrews, and later on from that of Greece, 
particularly the Odyssey and the Iliad. The stories 
to which I refer possess a perennial vitality, an in- 
destructible charm. I am, I trust, no blind wor- 
shiper of antiquity. The mere fact that a thing has 
existed for a thousand or two thousand years is not 

(106) 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. lOT 

always proof that it is worth preserving. But the 
fact that after having been repeated for two thou- 
sand years a story still possesses a perfectly fresh 
attraction for the child of to-day, does indeed prove 
that there is in it something of imperishable worth. 
How is this unique charm of the classical literature 
to be explained? What quality exists in Homer, 
in the Bible, enabling them, despite the changes of 
taste and fashion, to hold their own ? The novels 
of the last century are already antiquated ; few care 
to read them. The poetry of the middle ages is 
enjoyed only by those who cultivate a special taste 
for it. Historical and scientific works hardly have 
time to leave an impression before new books ap- 
pear to crowd them out. But a few great master- 
pieces have survived, and the truth and beauty of 
these the lapse of ages, it seems, has left unaltered. 
Mr. Jebb remarks'^ that Homer aims at the lucid 
expression of primary motives, and refrains from 
multiplying individual traits which might interfere 
with their effect, and that this typical quality in 
Homer's portraiture has been one secret of its uni- 
versal impressiveness. The Homeric outlines are in 
each case brilliantly distinct, while they leave to the 
reader a certain liberty of private conception, and 
he can fill them in so as to satisfy his own ideal. 
We may add that this is just as true of the Bible as 
of Homer. The biblical narrative, too, depicts a few 
essential traits of human nature, and refrains from 

* In his Introduction to Homer. 



108 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

multiplying minor traits which might interfere 
with the main effect. The Bible, too, draws its fig- 
ures in outline, and leaves every age free to fill them 
in so as to satisfy its own ideal. Thus the biblical 
story, as conceived in the mind of Milton, reflects 
the Puritan ideal; the same story, narrated in a 
modern pulpit or Sunday-school, will inevitably re- 
flect, to a greater or less degree, the modern humani- 
tarian ideal, and this liberty of interpretation is one 
cause of the vitality of the Bible. But it may be 
asked further. How did Homer, how did the biblical 
writers, succeed in producing such universal types, 
in drawing their figures so correctly that, however 
the colors may thenceforth be varied, the outlines 
remain forever true? He who should attempt at 
the ]3resent day to give expression to the most uni- 
versal traits of human nature, freed from the com- 
plex web of conditions, disengaged from the thou- 
sand-fold minor traits which modify the universal in 
particular instances, would find it difficult to avoid 
one or the other of two fatal errors. If he keeps 
his eyes fixed on the universal, he is in danger of 
producing a set of bloodless abstractions, pale shad- 
ows of reality, which will not live for a day, much 
less for a thousand years. If, on the other hand, 
he tries to keep close to reality he will probably 
produce more or less accurate copies of the types 
that surround him, but the danger will always be 
that the universal will be lost amid the particulars. 
By what quality in themselves or fortunate constel- 
lation of circumstances did Homer and the biblical 



STORIES PROM THE BIBLE. 109 

writers succeed in avoiding both these errors, in 
creating types of the ntmost universality and yet 
imparting to them the breath of life, the gait and 
accent of distinctive individuality ? I imagine that 
they succeeded because they lived at a time when 
life was much less complex than it is at present, 
when the conversation, the manners, the thoughts, 
the motives of men were simple. They were en- 
abled to individualize the universal because the most 
universal, the simplest motives, still formed the main- 
spring in the conduct of individuals. It was not 
necessary for them to enter into the barren region 
of abstraction and generalization to discover the uni- 
versal. They pictured what they actually saw. The 
universal and the individual were still blended in 
that early dawn of human history. 

"We have thus far spoken of Homer and the 
Bible jointly. But let us now give our particular 
attention to the biblical narrative. The narrative of. 
the Bible is fairly saturated with the moral spirit ; 
the moral issues are everywhere in the forefront. 
Duty, guilt and its punishment, the conflict of con- 
science with inclination, are the leading themes. 
The Hebrew people seem to have been endowed 
with what may be called " a moral genius," and espe- 
cially did they emphasize the filial and fraternal 
duties to an extent hardly equaled elsewhere, l^ow 
it is precisely these duties that must be impressed on 
young children, and hence the biblical stories pre- 
sent us with the very material we require. They can 
not, in this respect, be replaced ; there is no other lit- 



110 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

erature in the world tliat offers what is equal to them 
in value for the particular object we have now in 
view. Before proceeding, however, to discuss the 
stories in detail, let me remind you that in studying 
them a larger tax is made on the attention of children, 
and a higher development of the moral judgment 
is presupposed, than in the previous parts of our 
course ; for in them a succession of acts and their 
consequences are presented to the scholar, on each of 
which his judgment is to be exercised. Those who 
teach the biblical stories merely because it has been 
customary to regard the Bible as the text-book of 
morals and religion, without, however, being clear 
as to the place which belongs to it in a scheme of 
moral education, will always, I doubt not, achieve a 
certain result. The stories will never entirely fail 
of their beneficial effect, but I can not help think- 
ing that this effect will be greatly heightened if their 
precise pedagogic value is distinctly apprehened, and 
if the preparatory steps have been taken in due 
course. It seems to me that the moral judgment 
should first be exercised on a single moral quality 
as exhibited in a single act before it is applied to a 
whole series of acts ; and hence that the fable 
should precede the story. 

In making our selection from the rich material 
before us we need only keep in mind the prin- 
ciple already enunciated in the introductory lect- 
ures — that the moral teaching at any period should 
relate to the duties of that period. 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE, HI 

Adam and Eve in Paradise. 

This is a wonderful story for children. It de- 
serves to be placed at the head of all the others, for 
it inculcates the cardinal virtue of childhood — obedi- 
ence. It is also a typical story of the beginning, 
the progress, and the culmination of temptation. 
Will you permit me to relate the story as I should 
tell it to little children ? I shall endeavor to keep 
true to the outlines, and if I depart from the re- 
ceived version in other respects, may I not plead 
that liberty of interpretation to which I have re- 
ferred above. 

Once upon a time there were two children, Adam 
and Eve. Adam was a fine and noble-looking lad. 
He was slender and well built, and fleet of foot as 
a young deer. Eve was as beautiful as the dawn, 
with long golden tresses, and blue eyes, and cheeks 
like the rose. They lived in the loveliest garden 
that you have ever heard of. There were tall trees 
in it, and open meadows where the grass was as 
smooth as on a lawn, and clear, murmuring brooks 
ran through the woods. And there were dense 
thickets filled with the perfume of flowers, and the 
flowers grew in such profusion, and there were so 
many different kinds, each more beautiful than the 
rest, that it was a perfect feast for the eyes to look 
at them. It was so warm that the children never 
needed to go in-doors, but at night they would just 
lie down at the foot of some great tree and look at 
the stars twinkling through the branches until they 



112 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

fell asleep. And when it rained they would find 
shelter in some beautiful cavern, spreading leaves 
and moss upon the ground for a bed. The garden 
where they lived was called Paradise. And there 
were ever so many animals in it — all kinds of ani- 
mals — elephants,and tigers, and leopards, and giraffes, 
and camels, and sheep, and horses, and cows ; but 
even the wild animals did them no harm. But the 
children were not alone in that garden : their Father 
lived with them. And every morning when they 
woke up their first thought was to go to him and 
to look up into his mild, kind face for a loving 
glance, and every evening before they went to 
sleep he would bend over them. And once, as 
they lay under the great tree, looking at a star shin- 
ing through the branches, Adam said to Eve : " Our 
Father's eye shines just like that star." 

One day their Father said to them : " My chil- 
dren, there is one tree in this beautiful garden the 
fruit of which you must not eat, because it is hurt- 
ful to you. You can not understand why, but you 
know that you must obey your Father even when 
you do not understand. He loves you and knows 
best what is for your good." So they promised, and 
for a time remembered. But one day it happened 
that Eve was passing near the tree of the fruit of which 
she knew she must not eat, when what should she 
hear but a snake talking to her. She did not see it, 
but she heard its voice quite distinctly. And this is 
what the snake said : " You poor Eve ! you must 
certainly have a hard time. Your Father is always 



' STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 113 

forbidding you something. How stern he is ! I 
am sure that other children can have all the fruit 
they want." Eve was frightened at first. She knew 
that her Father was kind and good, and that the 
snake was telling a falsehood. He did not always 
forbid things. But still he had forbidden her to 
eat of this fruit, and she thought that was a little 
hard ; and she could not understand at all why he 
had done so. Then the snake spoke again : " Listen, 
Eve ! He forbade you to eat only of it. It can do 
no harm just to look at it. Go up to it. See how 
it glistens among the branches ! How golden it 
looks ! " And the snake kept on whispering : " How 
good it must be to the taste ! Just take one bite of 
it. Nobody sees you. Only one bite ; that can do 
no harm." And Eve glanced around, and saw that 
no one was looking, and presently with a hasty 
movement she seized the fruit and ate of it. Then 
she said to herself : " Adam, too, must eat of it. I can 
never bear to eat it alone." So she ran hastily up to 
Adam, and said : " See, I have some of the forbidden 
fruit, and you, too, must eat." And he, too, looked 
at it and was tempted, and ate. But that evening 
they were very much afraid. They knew they had 
done wrong, and their consciences troubled them. 
So they hurried away into the wood where it was 
deepest, and hid themselves in the bushes. But 
soon they heard their Father calling to them ; and 
it was strange, their Father's voice had never 
sounded so sad before. And in a few moments he 
found them where they were hiding. And he said 



114 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

to them : " Why do you hide from me ? " And 
they were very much confused, and stammered 
forth all sorts of excuses. But he said : " Come 
hither, children." And he looked into their eyes, 
and said : " Have you eaten of the fruit of which 
I told you not to eat?" And Adam, who was 
thoughtless and somewhat selfish, spoke up, and 
said : " Yes, but it was Eve who gave me of it ; she 
led me on." And Eve hung her head, and said : 
" It was the snake that made me eat." Now the 
snake, you know, was no real snake at all ; she never 
saw it, she only heard its voice. And, you know, 
when we want to do anything wicked, there is 
within every one of us something bad, that seems to 
whisper : " Just look I Mere looking will do no 
harm " ; and then : " Just taste ; no one sees you." So 
the snake was the bad feeling in Eve's heart. And 
their Father took them by the hand, and said : " To- 
morrow, when it is dawn, you will have to leave 
this place. In this beautiful Paradise no one can 
stay who has once disobeyed. You, Adam, must 
learn to labor ; and, you. Eve, to be patient and 
self-denying for others. And, perhaps, after a long, 
long time, some day, you will come back with me 
into Paradise again." 

It is a free rendering, I admit. I have filled in 
the details so as to bring it down to the level of 
children's minds, but the outlines, I think, are there. 
The points I have developed are all suggested in 
the Bible. The temptation begins when the snake 
says with characteristic exaggeration : " Is it true 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 115 

that of all the fruit you are forbidden to eat ? " Ex- 
aggerating the hardships of the moral command is 
the first step on the downward road. The second 
step is Eve's approach to look at the fruit — " and 
she saw that it was good for food, and pleasant to 
the eyes." The third step is the actual enjoyment 
of w^hat is forbidden. The fourth step is the desire 
for companionship in guilt, so characteristic of sin 
— "and she gave also unto her husband with her, 
and he did eat." The next passage describes the 
working of conscience, the fear, the shame, the desire 
to hide, and then comes the moral verdict : You are 
guilty, both of you. You have lost your paradise. 
Try to win it back by labor and suffering. 

Note. — I would add to what has been said in the text, that 
the pupils are expected to return to the study of the Bible, to 
read and re-read these stories, and to receive a progressively 
higher interpretation of their meaning as they grow older. If 
in the above I have spoken in a general way of a Father and 
his two children, it will be easy for the Sunday-school teacher 
to add later on that the Father in the story was God. 

Cain and Abel. 

In teaching the story of the two brothers Cain 
and Abel the following points should be noted. 
The ancients believed that earthly prosperity and 
well-being depended on the favor of God, or the 
gods, and that the favor of the gods could be se- 
cured by sacrifice. If any one brought a sacrifice 
and yet prosperity did not set in, this was supposed 
to be a sign that his sacrifice had not been accepted. 
On the other hand, to say of any person that his sacri- 



116 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

fice had been accepted, was tantamount to saying that 
he was happy and prosperous. Applying this to the 
story of Cain and Abel, we may omit all mention of 
the bringing of the sacrifices, which presents a great 
and needless difficulty to children's minds, and sim- 
ply make the equivalent statement that Abel was 
prosperous and Cain was not. 

Again, Cain is not represented as an intentional 
murderer. The true interpretation of the story de- 
pends on our bearing this in mind. It is erroneous 
to suppose that a brand was fixed on Cain's fore- 
head. The passage in question, correctly under- 
stood, means that God gave Cain a sign to reassure 
him that he should not be regarded by men as a 
common murderer. "With these prefatory remarks 
the story may be told somewhat as follows : 

Long ago there lived two brothers. The name of 
the elder was Cain, and of the younger Abel. Cain 
was a farmer. He toiled in the sweat of his brow, 
tilling the stubborn ground, taking out stones, 
building fences. Winter and summer he was up 
before the sun, and yet, despite all his labor, things 
did not go well with him. His crops often failed 
through no fault of his. He never seemed to have 
an easy time. Moreover, Cain was of a proud 
disposition. Honest he was, and truthful, but taci- 
turn, not caring much to talk to people whom he 
met, but rather keeping to himself. Abel, on the 
other hand, was a shepherd. He led, or seemed to 
lead, the most delightfully easy life. He followed 
his flocks from one pasture to another, watching 



STORIES FEOM THE BIBLE. II7 

tliem graze ; and at noon he would often lie down 
in the shade of some leafy tree and play on his 
flute by the hour. He was a skillful musician, a 
bright, talkative companion, and universally popu- 
lar. He was a little selfish too, as happy people 
sometimes are. He liked to talk about his successes, 
and, in a perfectly innocent way, which yet stung 
Cain to the quick, he would rattle on to his brother 
about the increase of his herds, about his plans and 
prospects, and the pleasant things that people were 
saying of him. Cain grew jealous of his brother 
Abel. He did not like to confess it to himself, but 
yet it was a fact. He kept comparing his own life 
of grinding toil with the easy, lazy life of the shep- 
herd — it was not quite so lazy, but so it seemed to 
Cain — his own poverty with the other's wealth, his 
own loneliness with Abel's popularity. And a frown 
would often gather on his brow, and he grew more 
and more moody and silent. He knew that he was 
not in the right state of mind. There was a voice 
within him that said : " Sin is at thy door, but 
thou canst become master over it." Sin is like a 
wild beast crouching outside the door of the heart. 
Open the door ever so little, and it will force its 
way in, and will have you in its power. Keep 
the door shut, therefore ; do not let the first evil 
thought enter into your heart. Thus only can you 
remain master of yourself. But Cain was already 
too far gone to heed the warning voice. One day he 
and Abel were walking together in the fields. Abel, 
no doubt, was chatting in his usual gay and thought- 



118 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

less maimer. The world was full of sunshine to 
liim ; and he did not realize in the least w'hat dark 
shadows were gathering about his brother's soul. 
Perhaps the conversation ran somewhat as follows : 
He had just had an addition to his herd, the finest 
calf one could imagine : would not Cain come to ad- 
mire it ? And then, to-morrow evening he M^as to 
play for the dancers on the green, at the village feast : 
would not Cain join in the merry-making ? When 
the solitary, embittered Cain heard such talk as this 
the angry feeling in his heart rose up like a flood. 
Overmastered by his passion, with a few wdld, in- 
coherent words of rage he turned upon his brother 
and struck him one fierce blow. Ah, that was a 
relief ! The pent-up feeling had found vent at last. 
The braggart had received the chastisement he de- 
served ! And Cain Avalked on ; and for a time con- 
tinued to enjoy his satisfaction. He had just no- 
ticed that Abel, when struck, had staggered and 
fallen, but he did not mind that. " Let him lie there 
for a while ; he will pick himself up presently. He 
may be lame for a few days, and his milk-white face 
may not be so fair at the feast, but that will be all 
the better for him. It will teach him a lesson." 
Nevertheless, when he had walked on for some dis- 
tance he began to feel uneasy. He looked around 
from time to time to see whether Abel was follow- 
ing him, and the voice of conscience began to be 
heard, saying, " Cain, where is thy brother ? " But 
he silenced it by saying to himself, " Am I my 
brother's keeper? Is he such a child that he can 



STORIES PROM THE BIBLE. 119 

not take care of himself — that he can not stand a 
blow ? " But he kept looking back more and more 
often, and when he saw no one coming, he came at 
last to a dead halt. His heart was beating violently 
by this time ; the beads of perspiration were gath- 
ered on his brow. He turned back to seek his miss- 
ing brother. Then, as he did not meet him, he began 
to run, and faster and faster he ran, until at last, 
jjanting and out of breath, with a horrible fear 
hounding him on, he arrived at the place where he 
had struck the blow. And there he saw — a pool of 
blood, and the waxen face of his brother, and the 
glazed, broken eyes ! And then he realized what he 
had done. And it is this situation which the Bible 
has in view in the words, " Behold, thy brother's 
blood cries up from the earth against thee." And 
then as he surveyed his deed in stony despair, he 
said to himself, " I am accursed from the face of the 
earth " — I am unworthy to live. The earth has no 
resting-place for such as I. But a sign was given 
him to show him that his life would not be required 
of him. He had not committed willful murder. 
He had simply given the reins to his violent passion. 
He must go into another land, where no one knew 
him, there through years of penance to try to regain 
his peace of soul. The moral of the story is : Do 
not harbor evil thoughts in the mind. If you have 
once given them entrance, the acts to which they 
lead are beyond your control. Cain's sin consisted 
in not crushing the feeling of envy in the begin- 
ning ; in comparing his own lot with that of his more 



120 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

favored brother and dwelling on this comparison, 
until, in a fit of insane passion, he was led on to the 
unspeakable crime which, indeed, he had never con- 
templated, to which he had never given an inward 
assent. The storj also illustrates the vain subter- 
fuges with which we still seek to smother the con- 
sciousness of guilt after we have done wrong, until 
the time comes when our eyes are opened and we 
are compelled to face the consequences of our deeds 
and to realize them in all their bearings. The 
story of Cain and Abel is thus a further develop- 
ment of the theme already treated in simpler fashion 
in the story of Adam and Eve, only that, while in 
the latter case the filial duty of obedience to par- 
ents is in the foreground, attention is here directed 
to the duty which a brother owes to a brother. It is 
a striking tale, striking in the vividness with which 
it conjures up the circumstances before our minds 
and the clearness with which the principal motives 
are delineated ; and it contains an awful warning 
for all time. 

The question here presents itself, whether we 
should arrange the biblical stories according to sub- 
jects — e, g., grouping together all those which treat 
of duty to parents, all those which deal with the rela- 
tions of brothers to brothers, etc. — or whether we 
should adopt the chronological arrangement. On the 
whole, I am in favor of the latter. It is expected 
that the pupils, as they grow older, will undertake 
a more comprehensive study of the Bible, and for 
this they will be better prepared if they have been 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 121 

kept to the clironological order from the outset. 
Another more practical reason is, that children 
tire of one subject if it is kept before their minds 
too long. It is better, therefore, to arrange the sto- 
ries in groups or cycles, each of which will afford 
opportunity to touch on a variety of moral topics. 
It will be impossible to continue to relate m ex- 
tenso the stories which I have selected, and I shall 
therefore content myself in the main with giving 
the points of each story upon which the teacher 
may lay stress. 

Tlie Story of NoaJi and his Sons. 

Describe the beauty of the vine, and of the pur- 
ple grapes hanging in clusters amid the green leaves. 
How sweet is this fruit to the taste ! But the juice 
of it has a dangerous property. Once there lived a 
man, Noah, who had three sons. He planted a 
vine, plucked the grapes, but did not know the dan- 
gerous property of. the juice. The second son, on 
seeing his father in a state of intoxication, allowed 
his sense of the ridiculous to overcome his feeling 
of reverence. But the eldest and the youngest sons 
acted difEerently. They took a garment, covered 
their father with it, and averted their faces so as 
not to see his disgrace. The moral is quite impor- 
tant. An intelligent child can not help detecting a 
fault now and then even in the best of parents. 
But the right course for him to take is to throw the 
mantle over the fault, and to turn away his face. 
He should say to himself : Am I the one to judge 



122 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

my parents — I who have been the recipient of so 
many benefits at their hands, and who see in them 
so many virtues, so mnch superior wisdom ? By 
such reasoning the feeling of reverence is even 
deepened. The momentary superiority which the 
child feels serves only to bring out his general in- 
feriority. 

The Ahraham Cycle. 

There is a whole series of stories belonging to 
this group, illustrating in turn the virtues of broth- 
erly harmony, generosity toward the weak, hospital- 
ity toward strangers, and maternal love, Abraham 
and Lot are near kinsmen. Their servants quarrel, 
and to avoid strife the former advises a separation. 
" If thou wilt go to the left," he says, " I will turn 
to the right ; if thou preferrest the land to the 
right, I will take the left." Abraham, being the 
older, was entitled to the first choice, but he waived 
his claim. Lot chose the fairer portion, and Abra- 
ham willingly assented. " Let there be no strife 
between us, for we be brethren." The lesson is, 
that the older and wiser of two brothers or kinsmen 
may well yield a part of his rights for harmony's 
sake. 

Abraham's conduct toward the King of Sodom 
is an instance of generosity. The story of the de- 
struction of Sodom and Gomorrah may be intro- 
duced by descril)ing the Dead Sea and the surround- 
ing scene of desolation. The moral lies in the cir- 
cumstance that ill treatment of strangers brought 
down the doom. Hospitality toward strangers is 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 123 

one of the shining virtues of the Old Testament 
heroes. Even at the present day strangers are still 
despised and ridiculed by the vulgar, their foreign 
manners, language, and habits seeming contempti- 
ble ; the lesson of hospitality is not yet superfluous. 
The story of Ilagar and her Child I should re- 
cast in such a way as to exclude what in it is repel- 
lent, and retain the touching picture of maternal 
affection. 1 should relate it somewhat as follows : 
There was once a little lad whose name was Ish- 
mael. He had lost his father and had only his 
mother to cling to. She was a tall, beautiful lady, 
with dark eyes which were often very sad, but 
they would light up, and there was always a sweet 
smile on her lips whenever she looked at her dar- 
ling boy. Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, had 
never been separated ; they were all in all to each 
other. One day it happened that they walked away 
from their home, which was near the great, sandy 
desert. Ishmael's mother was in deep distress, 
there was something troubling her, and every now 
and then a tear would steal down her cheeks. Ish- 
mael was sad, too, because his mother was, but he 
did not dare to ask her what it was that grieved 
her, fearing to give her pain. So they walked on 
and on, holding each other's hands in silence. But 
at last they saw that they had lost their way ; and 
they tried first one direction, and then another, 
thinking that it would bring them back toward 
home, but they only got deeper and deeper into the 
vast, lonely desert. And the sun burned hot and 



124 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

hotter above tlieir heads, and little Ishmael, who had 
tried to keep up like a brave lad, at last became 
so parched with thirst, and so faint with want of 
food, and so tired with walking — for they had wan- 
dered about for many, many hours — that he could 
go on no farther. Then his mother took him up in 
her arms and laid him under a bush, w^here there 
was a little shade. And then, oh then, how her 
poor heart was wrung, and how she Avept to see her 
darling in such suffering, and how she cried for help ! 
Then she sat down on the glaring sand at some dis- 
tance away, and turned her face in the direction op- 
posite to where Ishmael was lying ; for she said, 
" I can not bear to see my boy die." But just as 
she had given up all hope, suddenly she saw a no- 
ble-looking man, wearing the dress of the Bedouins, 
approach her. He had come from behind one of 
the sand hills, and it seemed to her as if he had 
come down straight from the sky. He asked her 
why she was in such grief, and when she told him, 
and pointed to her little son, he said : " It is fortu- 
nate that you have come to this place. There is a 
beautiful oasis close by." An oasis, children, is a 
spot of fruitful green earth right in the midst of 
the desert, like an island in the ocean. And the 
man took the boy up and carried him in his arms, 
and Hagar followed after him. And presently, 
when they came to the oasis, they found a cool, 
clear spring, full of the most delicious water, and 
palm-trees with ever so many dates on them, and all 
the people who lived there gathered around them. 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 125 

And tlie man who had been so kind proved to be 
the chief. And he took charge of Ishmael's educa- 
tion, showed him how to shoot with the bow and 
how to hunt, and was hke a real father to him. 
And when Ishmael grew up he became a great chief 
of the Bedouins. But he always remained true to 
his mother, and loved her with all his heart. 

I am strongly in favor of omitting the story of 
the Sacrifice of Isaac. I do not think we can 
afford to tell young children that a father was pre- 
pared to draw the knife against his own son, even 
though he desisted in the end. I should not be 
willing to inform a child that so horrible an impulse 
could have been entertained even for a moment in 
a parent's heart. I regard the story, indeed, as, 
from an historical point of view, one of the most 
valuable in the Bible ; it has a deep meaning ; but 
it is not food fit for children. A great mistake 
has been made all along in supposing that whatever 
is true in religion must be communicated to chil- 
dren ; and that if anything be very true and very 
important we ought to hasten to give it to children 
as early as possible ; but there must be preparatory 
training. And the greatest truths are often of such 
a kind as only the mature mind, ripe in thought and 
experience, is fitted to assimilate. 

One of the most charming idyls of patriarchal 
times is the story of Rebecca at the Well. It illus- 
trates positively, as the story of Sodom does nega- 
tively, the duty of hospitality toward strangers. 
"Drink, lord, and I will give thy camels drink 



126 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

also," is a pleasant phrase which is apt to stick in 
the memorj. Moreover, the story shows the high 
place which the trusted servant occupied in the 
household of his master, and offers to the teacher 
an opportunity of dwelling on the respect due to 
faithful servants. 

The Jacob Cycle. 

Wliat treatment shall Jacob receive at our hands, 
he, the sly trickster, who cheats his brother of his 
birthright and steals a father's blessing? Yet he is 
one of the patriarchs, and is accorded the honorable 
title of " champion of God." To hold him up to 
the admiration of the young is impossible. To gloss 
over his faults and try to explain them aAvay were a 
sorry business, and honesty forbids. The Bible it- 
self gives us the right clew. His faults are nowhere 
disguised. He is represented as a person who makes 
a bad start in life — a very bad start, indeed — but 
who pays the penalty of his wrong-doing. His is a 
story of penitential discipline. 

In telling the story, all reference to the duplicity 
of Rebecca should be omitted, for the same reason 
that malicious step-mothers and cruel fathers have 
been excluded from the fairy tales. 

The points to be discussed may be summarized 
as follows : 

Taking advantage of a hrother in distress. — 
Jacob purchases the birthright for a mess of pot- 



tao;e. 



Tender attachment to a hel-pless old father. 



STORIES FEOM THE BIBLE. 127 

Esau goes out hunting to supply a special delicacy 
for his father's table. This is a point which children 
will appreciate. Unable to confer material benefits 
on their parents, they can only show their love by 
slight attentions. 

Deceit. — Jacob simulates the appearance of his 
older brother and steals the blessing. In this con- 
nection it will be necessary to say that a special 
power was supposed to attach to a father's blessing, 
and that the words once spoken were deemed irrevo- 
cable. 

JacoVs penitential discipline hegins. — The de- 
ceiver is deceived, and made to feel in his own per- 
son the pain and disappointment which deceit 
causes. He is repeatedly cheated by his master 
Laban, especially in the matter which is nearest to 
him, his love for Kachel. 

The forgi'veness of injuries. — Esau's magnani- 
mous conduct toward his brother. 

The evil consequences of tale-l)earing and conceit. 
— It is a significant fact that Joseph is not a mere 
coxcomb. He is a man of genius, as his later career 
proves, and the stirrings of his genius manifest 
themselves in his early dreams of future greatness. 
Persons of this description are not always pleasant 
companions, especially in their youth. They have 
not yet accomplished anything to wan-ant distinc- 
tion, and yet they feel within themselves the pre- 
sentiment of a destiny and of achievements above the 
ordinary. Their faults, their arrogance, their seemy 
ingly preposterous claims, are not to be excused, \)vi 



128 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

neither is the envy they excite excusable. One of 
the hardest things to learn is to recognize without 
envy the superiority of a brother. 

Moral cowardice. — Reuben is guilty of moral 
cowardice. lie was an opportunist, who sought to 
accomplish his ends by diplomacy. If he, as the 
oldest brother, had used his authority and boldly 
denounced the contemplated crime, he might have 
averted the long train of miseries that followed. 

Strength and depth of paternal love. — " Joseph 
is no more : an evil beast has devoured him. I will 
go mourning for my son Joseph into the grave." 
It is a piece of poetic justice that Jacob, who de- 
ceived his father in the matter of the blessing by 
covering himself with the skin of a kid, is himself 
deceived by the blood of a kid of the goats with 
which the coat of Joseph had been stained. 

In speaking of the temptation of Joseph in the 
house of Potiphar, it is enough to say that the wife 
conspired against her husband, and endeavored to 
induce Joseph to betray his master. A pretty addi- 
tion to the story is to be found in the Talmud, to 
the effect that Joseph saw in imagination the face 
of his father before him in the moment of tempta- 
tion, and was thereby strengthened to resist. 

The light of a superior mind can not he hidden 
even in a prison. — Joseph wins the faror of his fel- 
low-prisoners, and an opportunity is thus opened to 
him to exercise his talents on the largest scale. 

Affliction chastens. — The famine had in the 
mean time spread to Palestine. The shadow of the 



STORIES PROM THE BIBLE. 129 

grief for Joseph still laj heavily on the household 
of the patriarch. Joseph is lost; shall Benjamin, 
too, perish ? It is pleasant to observe that the char- 
acter of the brothers in the mean time has been 
changed for the better. There is evidently a lurk- 
ing sense of guilt and a desire to atone for it in the 
manner in which Judah pledges himself for the 
safety of the youngest child. And the same marked 
change is visible in the conduct of all the brothers 
on the journey. The stratagem of the cup was 
cunningly devised to test their feelings. They 
might have escaped by throwing the blame on 
Benjamin. Instead of that, they dread nothing so 
much as that he may have to suffer, and are willing 
to sacrifice everything to save him. When this new 
spirit has become thoroughly apparent, the end to 
which the whole group of Jacob stories pointed all 
along is reached ; the work of moral regeneration 
is complete. Jacob himself has been purified by 
affliction, and the brothers and Joseph have been 
developed by the same hard taskmaster into true 
men. The scene of recognition which follows, 
when the great vice-regent orders his attendants 
from the apartment and embraces those who once 
attempted his life, with the words, " I am Joseph, 
your brother : does my father still live ? " is touch- 
ing in the extreme, and the whole ends happily in a 
blaze of royal pomp, like a true Eastern tale. 

A word as to the method which should be used 
in teaching these stories. If the fairy tale holds 
the moral element in solution, if the fable drills the 



130 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

pupil in distinguishing one moral trait at a time, the 
biblical stories exhibit a combination of moral qual- 
ities, or, more precisely, the interaction of moral 
causes and effects ; and it is important for the teacher 
to give expression to this difference in the manner 
in which he handles the stories. Thus, in the fables 
we have simply one trait, like ingratitude, and its 
immediate consequences. The snake bites the coun- 
tryman, and is cast out ; there the matter ends. In 
the story of Joseph we have, first, the partiality of 
the father, which produces or encourages self-conceit 
in the son ; Joseph's conceit produces envy in the 
brothers. This envy reacts on all concerned — on 
Joseph, who in consequence is sold into slavery ; on 
the father, who is j3lunged into inconsolable grief ; 
on the brothers, who nearly become murderers. 
The servitude of Joseph destroys his conceit and de- 
velops his nobler nature. Industry, fidelity, and sa- 
gacity raise him to high power. The sight of the 
constant affliction of their father on account of Jo- 
seph's loss mellows the heart of the brothers, etc. 
It is this interweaving of moral causes and effects 
that gives to the stories their peculiar value. They 
are true moral pictures ; and, like the pictures used 
in ordinary object lessons, they serve to train the 
power of observation. Trained observation, how- 
ever, is the indispensable preliminary of correct 
moral judgment. 



STORIES PROM THE BIBLE. 131 

The Moses Cycle. 

The figures of the patriarchs and the prophets 
appeal to us with a fresh interest the moment we 
regard them as human beings like ourselves, who 
were tempted as we are, who struggled as we are 
bound to do, and who acted, howsoever the divine 
economy might supervene, on their own responsi- 
bility. Looked at from this point of view, the 
figure of Moses, the Liberator, approaches our 
sympathies at the same time that he towers in im- 
posing proportions above our level. Let us briefly 
review his career. Like Arminius at a later day, he 
is educated at the court of the enemies of his peo- 
ple. In dress, in manners, in speech, he doubtless 
resembles the grandees of Pharaoh's court. When 
he approaches the well in Midian, the daughter of 
Jethro exclaims, " Behold, an Egyptian is com- 
ing ! " But at heart he remains a Hebrew, and is 
deeply touched by the cruel sufferings of his race. 
His first public intervention on their behalf takes 
place when he strikes down and kills a native over- 
seer whoiji he detects in the act of maltreating a He- 
brew slave. This is characteristic of the manner in 
which reformers begin. They direct their first efforts 
against the particular consequences of some great 
general wrong. Later on they perceive the useless- 
ness of such a procedure and take heart to attack the 
evil at its source. Moses flees into the desert. The 
lonely life he leads there is necessary to the develop- 
ment of his ideas. Solitude is essential to the 



132 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

growth of genius. The burning bush is the out- 
ward sj'mbol of an inward fact. The fire which 
can not be quenched is in his own breast, and out of 
that inward burning he liears more and more dis- 
tinctly the voice which bids him go back and free 
his people. But when he considers the means at 
his disposal, when in fancy he sees his people, a 
miserable horde of slaves, pitted against the armed 
hosts of Pharaoh, he is ready to despair ; until 
he hears the comforting voice, which says, " The 
Eternal is with thee ; the unchangeable power of 
right is on thy side : it will prevail ! " Like Jere- 
miah, like Isaiah, like all great reformers, Moses is 
profoundly imbued with the sense of his unfitness 
for the task laid upon him. He pleads that he is 
heavy of speech. He can only stammer forth the 
message of freedom. But he is reassured by the 
thought that a brother will be found, that helpers 
will arise, that the thought which he can barely for- 
mulate will be translated by other lesser men into a 
form suitable for the popular understanding. He 
returns to Egypt to find that the greatest obstacle 
in his way is the lethargy and unbelit^ of the 
very people whom he wishes to help. This again 
is a typical feature of his career. The greatest 
trials of the reformer are due not to the open 
enmity of the oppressor, but to the meanness, the 
distrust and jealousy, of those whom oppression has 
degraded. At last, however, the miracle of salva- 
tion is wrought, the weak prevail over the mighty, 
the cause of justice triumphs against all apparent 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 133 

odds to tlie contrary. The slaves rise against their 
masters, the flower of Egyptian chivalry is destroyed. 
Pharaoh rallies his army and sets out in pursuit. 
But the Hebrews, under Moses's guidance, have 
gained the start, and escape into the wilderness in 
safety. 

Freedom is a precious opportunity — no more. 
Its value depends on the use to which it is put. And 
therefore, no sooner was the act of liberation accom- 
plished, than the great leader turned to the task of 
positive legislation, the task of developing a higher 
moral life among his people. But here a new 
and keener disappointment awaited him. When he 
descended from the mount, the glow of inspiration 
still upon his face, the tablets of the law in his 
hand, he saw the people dancing about the golden 
calf. It is at this moment that Michel Angelo, 
deeply realizing the human element in the biblical 
story, has represented the form of the liberator in 
the colossal figure which was destined for Pope 
Julius's tomb. " The right foot is slightly advanced ; 
the long beard trembles with the emotion which 
quivers through the whole frame ; the eyes flash 
indignant wrath ; the right hand grasps the tablets 
of the law ; in another moment, w^e see it plainly, 
he will leap from his sitting posture and shatter 
the work which he has made upon the rocks." 
This trait, too, is typical. Many a leader of a noble 
cause has felt, in moments of deep disappointment, 
as if he could shatter the whole work of his life. 
Many a man, in like situation, has said to himself : 



134 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

The people are willing enough to hail the message of 
the higher law to-day, but to-morrow they sink back 
into their dull, degraded condition, as if the vision 
from the mount had never been reported to them. 
Let me, then, leave them to their dreary ways, to 
dance about their golden calf. But a better and 
stronger mood prevailed in Moses. He ascended 
once more to the summit, and there prostrated him- 
self in utter self-renunciation and self-effacement. 
He asked nothing for himself, only that the people 
%vhom he loved might be benefited ever so little, 
be raised ever so slowly above their low condition. 
And again the questioning spirit came upon him, 
and he said, as many another has said : The paths 
of progress are dark and twisted ; the course of his- 
tory seems so often to be in the wrong direction. 
How can I be sure that there is such a thing as 
eternal truth — that the right will prevail in the end ? 
And then there came to him that grand revelation, 
the greatest, as I think, and the most sublime in the 
Old Testament, when the eternal voice answered his 
doubt, and said : " Thou wouldst know my ways, but 
canst not. No living being can see my face ; only 
from the rearward canst thou know me." As a ship 
sails through the waters and leaves its wake behind, 
so the divine Power passes through the world and 
leaves behind the traces by which it can be known. 
And what are those traces? Justice and mercy. 
Cherish, therefore, the divine element in thine own 
nature, and thou wilt see it reflected in the world 
about thee. Wouldst thou be sure that there is such 



STORIES PROM THE BIBLE. 135 

a tiling as a divine Power ? be thyself just and mer- 
ciful. And so Moses descended again to his people, 
and became exceeding charitable in spirit. The Bible 
says : " The man Moses was exceeding humble ; there 
was no one more humble than he on the face of the 
earth." He bore with resignation their complaints, 
their murmurings, their alternate cowardice and 
foolhardiness. He was made to feel, like many 
another in his place, that his foes were they of his 
own household. He had an only brother and an 
only sister. His brother and sister rose up against 
him. His kinsmen, too, revolted from him. He 
endured all their weakness, all their follies; he 
sought to lift them by slow degrees to the height 
of his own aims. He set the paths of life and 
death before them, and told them that the divine 
word can not be found by crossing the seas or by 
searching the heavens, but must be found in the 
human heart ; and if men find it not there they 
will find it nowhere else. And so, at last, his pil- 
grimage drew to a close. He had reached the con- 
fines of Palestine. Once more he sought the mount- 
ain-top, and there beheld the promised land stretch- 
ing far away — the land which his eyes were to see 
but which he was never to enter. Few great reform- 
ers, indeed few men who have started a great move- 
ment in history, and have been the means of pro- 
ducing deep and permanent changes in the ideas 
and institutions of society, have lived to see those 
changes consummated. The course of evolution is 
slow, and the reformer can hope at best to see the 



136 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

promised land from afar — as in a dream. Happy 
he if, like Moses, lie retains the force of his con- 
victions unabated, if his spiritual sight remains un- 
dimmed, if the splendid vision which attended him 
in the beginning inspires and consoles him to the 
end. 

The narrative which has thus been sketched 
touches on some of the weightiest problems of hu- 
man existence, and deals with motives both complex 
and lofty. I have entered into the interpretation of 
these motives for the purpose of showing that they 
are too complex and too lofty to be within the com- 
prehension of children, and that it is an error, 
though unfortunately a common one, to attempt to 
use the grand career of a reformer and liberator as 
a text for the moral edification of the very young. 
They are wholly unprepared to understand, and that 
which is not understood, if forced on the attention, 
awakens repugnance and disgust. Few of those 
who have been compelled to study the life of Moses 
in their childhood have ever sncceeded in conquer- 
ing this repugnance, or have drawn from it, even in 
later life, the inspiration and instruction which it 
might otherwise have afforded them. For our pri- 
mary course, however, we can extract a few points 
interesting even to children, thus making them fa- 
miliar with the name of Moses, and preparing the 
way for a deeper interest later on. The incidents of 
the story which I should select are these : The child 
Moses exposed on the Nile ; the good sister watching 
over his safety ; the kind princess adopting him as 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 137 

her son; the sympathy manifested by him for his 
enslaved brethren despite his exemption from their 
misfortunes. The kilhng of the Egyptian should be 
represented as a crime, palliated but not excused by 
the cruelty of the overseer. Special stress may be 
laid upon the chivalric conduct of Moses toward the 
young girls at the well of Midian. The teacher 
may then go on to say that Moses, having succeeded 
in freeing his people from the power of the Egyptian 
king, became their chief, that many wise laws are 
ascribed to him, etc. The story of the spies, and of 
the end of Moses, may also be briefly told. 

The mention of the laws of Moses leads me to 
offer a suggestion. I have remarked above that 
children should be taught to observe moral pictures 
before any attempt is made to deduce moral princi- 
ples ; but certain smvple rules should be given even 
to the very young — must, indeed, be given them for 
their guidance. ISTow, in the legislation ascribed to 
Moses we find a number of rules fit for children, 
and a collection of these rules might be made for 
the use of schools. They should be committed to 
memory by the pupils, and perhaps occasionally re- 
cited in chorus. I have in mind such rules as 
these : * 

1. Ye shall not lie. (Many persons who pay at- 
tention only to the Decalogue, and forget the legisla- 
tion of which it forms a part, seem not to be aware 

* I have taken the liberty of altering the language here and 
there, for reasons that will be obvious in each case. 



138 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

that there is in the Pentateuch [Lev. xix, 11] a dis- 
tinct commandment against lying.) 

2. Ye shall not deceive one another. 

3. Ye shall take no bribe. 

4. Honor thy father and thy mother. 

5. Every one shall reverence his mother and his 
father. (Note that the father is placed first in the 
one passage and the mother first in the other, to in- 
dicate the equal title of both to their children's rev- 
erence.) 

6. Thou shalt not speak disrespectfully of those 
in authority, 

7. Before the hoary head thou shalt rise and pay 
honor to the aged. 

10. Thou shalt not spread false reports. 

11. Thou shalt not go about as a tale-bearer 
among thy fellows. 

V2. Thou shalt not hate thy neighbor in thy 
heart, but shalt warn him of his evil-doing. 

13. Thou shalt not bear a grudge against any, 
but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 

8. Thou shalt not speak evil of the deaf (think- 
ing that he can not hear thee), nor put an obstacle 
in the way of the blind. 

9. If there be among you a poor man, thou shalt 
not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy 
poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto 
him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need. 

14. If thou seest the property of thine enemy 
threatened with destruction, thou shalt do thy utmost 
to save it. 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 139 

15. If tliou findest what is not tliine own, and 
the owner is not known to thee, guard it carefully, 
that thou mayest restore it to its rightful owner. 

16. Thou shalt not do evil because many others 
are doing the same evil. 

Bearing grudges, lying, mocking those who (like 
the deaf and blind) are afflicted with personal de- 
fects, appropriating what is found without attempt- 
ing to discover the owner, seeking to excuse wrong 
on the plea that many others are guilty of it — all 
these are forms of moral evil with which children 
are perfectly familiar, and against which they need 
to be warned. It is more than strange that such 
commandments as the sixth and eighth of the Deca- 
logue (the commandment against murder and against 
adultery, forsooth), which are inapplicable to little 
children, should be made so much of in primary 
moral instruction, while those other commandments 
which do come home to them are often overlooked. 
The theory here expounded, that moral teaching 
should keep pace with the experience and intelli- 
gence of the child, should save us from such mis- 
takes. 

To proceed with the stories, the book of Joshua 
offers nothing that we can turn to account, nor do 
the stories of Jael, Deborah, and Gideon contain 
moral lessons fit for the young. Sour milk is not 
proper food for children, nor do those stories afford 
the proper moral food in which, so to speak, the 
milk of human kindness has turned sour. The 
labors of Samson, the Hebrew Hercules, are likewise 



140 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

unfit to be used at this stage, at least for the pur- 
pose of moral instruction. The story of the daugh- 
ter of Jephtha, the Hebrew Iphigenia, is exquisitely 
pathetic, but it involves the horrible idea of human 
sacrifice, and therefore had better be omitted. The 
acts and speeches of Samuel mark an epoch in the 
history of the Hebrew religion, and are of profound 
interest to the scholar. But there are certain feat- 
ures, such as the killing of Agag, which would have 
to be eliminated in any case ; then the theological 
and moral elements are so blended that it would be 
difficult if not impossible to separate them ; and 
altogether the character of this mighty ancient seer, 
this Hebrew Warwick, this king-maker and enemy 
of kings, is above the comprehension of primary 
scholars. We shall therefore omit the whole inter- 
vening period, and pass at once from the Moses 
cycle to 

The David Cycle. 

The first story of this group is that of Naomi 
and Muth, the ancestress of David. Upon the 
matchless beauty of this tale it is unnecessary to ex- 
patiate. I wish to remark, however, in passing that 
it illustrates as well as any other — better perhaps than 
any other — the peculiar art of the biblical narrative 
to which we have referred above. If any one at the 
present day were asked to decide whether a woman 
placed in Ruth's situation would act rightly in leav- 
ing her home and following an aged mother-in-law 
to a distant country, how many pros and cons would 
he have to weigh before he would be able to say yes 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 141 

or no ? Are her own parents still living, and are 
they so situated that she is justified in leaving them ? 
Are there other blood relations who have a prior 
claim on her ? Has she raised expectations at home 
which she ought not to disappoint, or undertaken 
duties which ought not to be set aside in deference 
to a sentiment no matter how noble ? Of all such 
side issues and complications of duty which would 
render a decision like hers difficult in modern times, 
the story as we have it before us is cleared. All 
minor traits are suppressed. It is assumed that she 
has a right to go if she pleases, and the mind is left 
free to dwell, unimpeded by any counter-considera- 
tions, upon the beauty of her choice. This choice 
derives its excellence from the fact that it was per- 
fectly free. There was no tie of consanguinity be- 
tween Naomi and her. The two women were re- 
lated in such a way that the bond might either 
be drawn more tightly or severed without blame. 
Orpah, too, pitied her mother-in-law. She wept, but 
she returned to her home. We can not, on that ac- 
count, condemn her. It was not her bounden duty to 
go. Ruth, on the other hand, might perhaps have 
satisfied her more sensitive conscience by accom- 
panying her mother-in-law as far as Bethlehem, and 
then returning to Moab. But she preferred instead 
exile and the hardships of a life among strangers. 
Not being a daughter, she freely took upon herself 
the duties of a daughter ; and it is this that consti- 
tutes the singular merit of her action. In telling 
the story it is best to follow the original as closely 



142 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

as possible. " Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to 
desist from following after tliee, for whither thou 
goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I will 
lodge : thy people shall be my people : where thou 
diest will I die and there will I be buried." Where 
in universal literature shall we find words more 
eloquent of tender devotion than these ? It will be 
noticed that I have left out the phrase " and thy God 
shall be my God " for two reasons. No matter how 
much we may love another person, religious con- 
victions ought to be held sacred. We have no right 
to give up our convictions even for affection's sake. 
Moreover, the words correctly understood are really 
nothing but an amplification of what has preceded. 
The language of Ruth refers throughout to the 
proposed change of country. " Whither thou goest, 
I will go ; where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy folk 
shall be my folk; where thou diest, I will die," 
And the phrase " Thy God shall be my God " has 
the same meaning. The ancients believed that every 
country has its God, and to say " Thy God shall 
be my God " was tantamount to saying " Thy coun- 
try shall be my country." It is better, therefore, to 
omit these words. Were we to retain them, the im- 
pression might be created that Ruth contemplated a 
change of religion merely to please the aged ISTaomi, 
and such a step from a moral point of view would 
be unwarrantable. It was this Gentile woman Ruth 
who became the ancestress of the royal house of 
David. 

The story of DavicVs life is replete with dra- 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. 143 

matic interest. It may be arranged in a series of 
pictures. First picture : David and Goliath — i. e., 
skill pitted against brute strength, or the deserved 
punishment of a bully. Every boy takes comfort 
in this story. Second picture : David and Jonathan, 
their arms twined about each other's neck, a beauti- 
ful example of youthful friendship. Especially 
should the unselfishness of Jonathan be noted. He, 
the Hebrew crown prince, so far from being jealous 
of his rival, recognized the superior qualities of the 
latter and served him with the most generous fidel- 
ity. Third picture : David the harper, playing be- 
fore the gloomy, moody king, whom an evil spirit 
has possessed. It should be noted how difiicult is 
the task incumbent upon Jonathan of combining his 
duty to his father and his affection for his friend. 
Yet he fails in neither. Fourth picture : David's 
loyalty manifest. He has the monarch in his power 
in the camp, in the cave, and proves that there is no 
evil intention in his mind. The words of Saul are 
very touching, " Is it thy voice I hear, my son 
David ? " Fifth picture : the battle, the tragical 
end of Saul and Jonathan. The dirge of David 
floats above the field : " The beauty of Israel is slain 
upon the high places. How are the miglity fallen ! " 
etc. A second series of pictures now begins. David 
is crowned king, first by his clansmen, then by the 
united tribes. David, while besieging Bethlehem, 
is athirst and there is no water. Three of his 
soldiers cut their way to the well near the gate, 
which is guarded by the enemy, and bring back a 



144 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

cup of water. He refuses it, saying : " It is not 
water, but the blood of the men who have risked 
their hves for me." Omitting the storj of Bath- 
sheba, we come next to the rebellion of Absalom. 
The incidents of this rebellion may be depicted as 
follows : First, Absalom in his radiant beauty at the 
feast of the sheep-shearer. Next, Absalom at the 
gate playing the demagogue, secretly inciting the 
peo]3le to revolt. Next, David ascending Mount Oli- 
vet weeping, the base Shimei, going along a parallel 
ridge, flinging stones at the king and reviling him. 
David remarks : " If ray own son seek my life, how 
shall I be angry with this Benjamite ? " Next, the 
death of Absalom in the wood. Finally, David at 
the gate receiving the news of Absalom's death, and 
breaking forth into the piercing cry : " my son 
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would God I 
had died for thee ! O Absalom, my son, my son ! " 
It i^the story of a rebellious and undutiful child, 
and illustrates by contrast the unfathomable depth 
of a father's love, of a love that yearns even over 
the wicked, over the lost. 

The points of the stories included in the David 
cycle are : skill and courage triumphant over brute 
strength, unselfish friendship, loyalty, a leader's 
generosity toward his followers, and parental love. 
The arrangement of the words in the lament of 
David for his son deserves to be specially noted. 
It corresponds to and vividly describes the rhythmic 
movements of the emotions excited by great sorrow. 
From the life of Solomon we select only the judg- 



STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. I45 

ment, related in I Kings, iii. "We may compare 
with it a similar storj, showing, however, interesting 
variations, in the Jataka tales. 

"With this our selections from the Old Testa- 
ment narrative come to an end. The ideal types are 
exhausted, and the iigm-es which now appear npon 
the scene stand before us in the dry light of history. 

From the l^ew Testament we select for the 
primary course the story of the Good Samaritan, as 
illustrative of true charity. Selected passages from 
the Sermon on the Mount may also be explained 
and committed to memory. The Beatitudes, how- 
ever, and the parables lie outside our present limits, 
presupposing as they do a depth of spiritual experi- 
ence which is lacking in children. 

Note. — It should be remembered that the above selections 
have been made with a view to their being included in a course 
of unsectarian moral instruction. Such a course must not ex- 
press the religious tenets of any sect or denomination. Much that 
has here been omitted, however, can be taught in the Sunday 
schools, the existence of which alongside of the daily schools is, 
as I have said, presupposed in these lectures. I have simply 
tried to cull the moral meaning of the stories, leaving, as I be- 
lieve, the way open for divergent religious interpretations of the 
same stories. But I realize that the religious teacher may 
claim the Bible wholly for his own, and may not be willing 
to share even a part of its treasure with the moral teacher. If 
this be so, then these selections from the Bible, for the present, 
at all events, will have to be omitted. They can, nevertheless, 
be used by judicious parents, and some if not all of the sugges- 
tions they contain may prove acceptable to teachers of Sunday 
schools. 



10 



X. 

THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 

As we leave the field of biblical literature and 
turn to the classic epic of Greece, a new scene 
spreads out before us, new forms and faces crowd 
around us, we breathe a different atmosphere. 

The poems of Homer among the Greeks oc- 
cupied a place in many respects similar to that of 
the Bible among the Hebrews. At Athens there 
was a special ordinance that the Homeric poems 
should be recited once every fourth year at the 
great Panathenaic festival. On this occasion the 
rl;apsode, standing on an elevated platform, arrayed 
in rich robes, with a golden wreath about his head, 
addressed an audience of many thousands. The 
poems were made the subject of mystical, allegori- 
cal, and rationalistic interpretation, precisely as was 
the case with the text of the Bible. As late as the 
first century of our era, the first book placed in 
the hands of children, the book from which they 
learned to read and write, was Homer. Xenophon 
in the Symposium has one of the guests say : " My 
father, anxious tliat I should become a good man, 
made me learn all the poems of Homer, and now 

(146) 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 14Y 

I could repeat tlie whole Iliad and Odyssey by 
heart." ^ 

We shall not go quite to the same length as 
Xenophon. We should hardly think it sufficient 
in order to make a good man of a boy to place 
Homer in his hands. But we do believe that the 
knowledge of the Homeric poems, introduced at the 
right time and in the right way, will contribute to 
such a result. 

Let us, however, examine more closely in what 
the value of these poems consists. 

Ulysses is the hero of the Odyssey, Achilles of the 
Iliad. Ulysses is pre-eminently the type of resource- 
ful intelligence, Achilles of valor. In what way 
will these types appeal to our pupils ? As the boy de- 
velops beyond the early period of childhood, there 
shows itself in him a spirit of adventure. This has 
been noticed by all careful educators. Now, there 
is a marked difference between the spirit of adven- 
ture and the spirit of play. Play consists in the free 
exercise of our faculties. Its characteristic mark 
is the absence of taxing effort. The child is said to 
be at play when it frolics in the grass, when it leaps 
or runs a race, or when it imitates the doings of its 
elders. As soon, however, as the exertion required 
in carrying on a game becomes appreciable, the 
game is converted into a task and loses its charm. 
The spirit of adventure, on the contrary, is called 
forth by obstacles ; it delights in the prospect of 

* See Jebb's Introduction to Homer. 



148 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

difficulties to be overcome ; it is the sign of a fresh 
and apparently boundless energy, which has not yet 
been taught its limitations by the rough contact with 
realities. The spirit of adventure begins to develop 
in children when the home life no longer entirely 
contents them, when they wish to be freed from the 
constraint of dependence on others, when it seems to 
them as if the whole world lay open to them and they 
could dare and do almost anything. It is at this time 
that children love to read tales of travel, and espe- 
cially tales of the sea, of shipwreck, and hair-breadth 
escapes, of monsters slain by dauntless heroes, of 
rescue and victory, no matter how improbable or 
impossible the means. Now success in such advent- 
ures depends largely on courage. And it is good 
for children to have examj)les even of physical 
courage set before them, provided it be not brutal. 
The craven heart ought to be despised. Mere good 
intentions ought not to count. Unless one has the 
resolute will, the fearless soul, that can face diffi- 
culties and danger without flinching, he will never 
be able to do a man's work in the world. This 
lesson should be imprinted early. A second prereq- 
uisite of success is presence of mind, or what has 
been called above resourceful intelligence. And 
this quality is closely allied with the former. Pres- 
ence of mind is the result of bravery. The mind will 
act even in perilous situations if it be not paralyzed 
by fear. It is fear that causes the wheels of 
thought to stop. If one can only keep off the clog 
of fear, the mind will go on revolving and often 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 149 

find a way of escape where there seemed none. Be 
not a coward, be brave and clear-headed in the 
midst of peril — these are lessons the force of which 
is appreciated by the growing pnpil. The Iliad and 
Odyssey teach them on every page. 

Bravery and presence of mind, it is true, are 
commonly regarded as worldly, rather than as, in the 
strict sense, moral qualities. However that may be 
— and I, for one, am inclined to rank true courage 
and true presence of mind among the highest mani- 
festations of the moral nature— these qualities when 
they show themselves in the young soon exert a 
favorable influence on the whole character, and 
serve especially to transform the attitude of the child 
toward its parents. Hitherto the young child has 
been content to be the mere recipient of favors ; 
as soon as the new consciousness of strength, the 
new sense of independence and manliness has de- 
veloped, the son begins to feel that he would like to 
give to his parents as well as to receive from them ; 
to be of use to his father, and to confer benefits, as 
far as he is able, in the shape of substantial services. 
These remarks will find their application in the 
analysis of the Odyssey, which we shall presently 
attempt. 

The Odyssey is a tale of the sea. Ulysses is the 
type of sagacity, as well as of bravery, his mind teems 
with inventions. In the boy Telemachus we behold 
a son struggling to cut loose from his mother's lead- 
ing-strings, and laudably ambitious to be of use to his 
parents. In the Odyssey we gain a distinct advance 



150 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

upon the moral results obtained from the study of 
the biblical stories. In the Bible it is chiefly the love 
of parents for their children which is dwelt upon, 
in the Odyssey the devotion of children to their 
parents ; and this, of course, marks a later stage. In 
the Odyssey, too, the conjugal relation comes into 
the foreground. In the Bible, the love of the hus- 
band for his wife is repeatedly touched uj)on. But 
the love of the wife for the husband is not equally 
emphasized, and the relations between the two do not 
receive particular attention. The joint authority of 
both parents over their children is the predominant 
fact, the delicate bonds of feeling wljich subsist be- 
tween the parents themselves are not in view. And 
this again corresponds to the earlier stage of child- 
hood. The young child perceives the joint love 
which father and mother bear toward it, and feels 
the joint authority which they exercise over it. But 
as the child grows up, its eyes are opened to per- 
ceive more clearly the love which the parents bear 
to one another, and its affection for both is fed 
and the desire to serve them is strengthened by 
this new insight. Thus it is in the Odyssey. The 
yearning of Ulysses for his wife, the fidelity of 
Penelope during twenty years of separation, are the 
leading theme of the narrative, and the effect of 
this love upon their son is apparent throughout 
the poem. 

Let us now consider the ethical elements of the 
Odyssey in some detail, arranging them under sepa- 
rate heads. 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 151 

1. Conjugal affection. Ulysses has been for seven 
years a prisoner in the cave of Calypso. The 
nymph of the golden hair offers him the gift of 
immortality if he will consent to be her husband, 
but he is proof against her blandishments, and asks 
for nothing but to be dismissed, so that he may 
see his dear home and hold his own true wife once 
more in his arms. 

" Apart upon the shore 
He sat and sorrowed. And oft in tears 
And sighs and vain repinings passed the hours, 
Gazing with wet eyes on the barren deep." * 

I would remark that, as the poem is too long to 
be read through entirely, and as there are passages 
in it which should be omitted, it is advisable for 
the teacher to narrate the story, quoting, however, 
such passages as give point to the narrative or have 
a special beauty of their own. Read the description 
of Calypso's cave v, Y3, if. Penelope meantime is 
patiently awaiting her husband's return. Read the 
passages which describe her great beauty, especially 
that lovely word-picture in which she is described 
as standing by a tall column in the hall, a maid on 
either side, a veil hiding her lustrous face, while she 
addresses the suitors. The noblest princes of Ithaca 
and the surrounding isles entreat her hand in mar- 
riage, and, thinking that Ulysses will never return, 
hold high revels in his house, and shamelessly con- 

* The quotations are taken from Bryant's translation of the 
Odyssey. 



152 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

sume liis wealth. Read the passage ii, 116-160, 
describing Penelope's device to put off the suitors, 
and at the same time to avert the danger which 
would have threatened her son in case she had openly 
broken with the chiefs. The love of Penelope is 
further set vividly before us by many delicate 
touches. Every stranger who arrives in Ithaca is 
hospitably entertained by the queen, and loaded 
with gifts, in the hope that he may bring her some 
news of her absent lord, and often she is deceived 
by wretches who speculate on her credulous grief. 
See the passage xiv, 155. During the day she is 
busy with her household cares, overseeing her maids, 
and seeking to divert her mind by busy occupation ; 
but at night the silence and the solitude become in- 
tolerable, and she weej)s her eyes out on her lonely 
couch. How the love of Penelope influences her 
boy, who was a mere babe when his father left for 
Troy, how the whole atmosphere of the house is 
charged with the sense of expectancy of the master's 
return, is shown in the passage ii, 1:39, where Telem- 
achus says : 

" Nurse, let sweet wine be drawn into my jars, 
The finest next to that which thou dost keep, 
Expecting our unhappy lord, if yet 
The nobly born Ulysses shall escape 
The doom of death and come to us again." 

The best cheer, the finest wine, the best of every- 
thing is kept ready against the father's home-coming, 
which may be looked for any day, if haply he has 
escaped the doom of death. There is one passage 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 153 

in which we might suspect that the poet has in- 
tended to show the hardening effect of grief on 
Penelope's character, xv, 479. Penelope does not 
speak to her old servants any more ; she passes them 
by without a word, apparently without seeing them. 
She does not attend to their wants as she used to do, 
and they, in turn, do not dare to address her. But 
we may forgive this seeming indifference inas- 
much as it only shows how completely she is 
absorbed by her sorrow. 

A companion picture to the love of Ulysses and 
Penelope is to be found in the conjugal relation of 
Alcinous, king of Phseacia, and his wife Arete, as 
described in the sixth book and the following. This 
whole episode is incomparably beautiful. "Was there 
ever a more perfect embodiment of girlish grace and 
modesty, coupled with sweetest frankness, than Nau- 
sicaa ? And what a series of lovely pictures is made 
to pass in quick succession before our eyes as we 
read the story ! First, Nausicaa, moved by the de- 
sire to prepare her wedding garments against her 
unknown lover's coming, not ashamed to acknowl- 
edge the motive to her own pure heart, but veil- 
ing it discreetly before her mother ; then the band 
of maidens setting out upon their picnic party, 
Kausicaa holding the reins ; next the washing of 
the garments, the bath, the game of ball, the 
sudden appearance of Ulysses, the flight of her 
companions, the brave girl being left to keep her 
place alone, with a courage born of pity for the 
stranger, and of virtuous womanhood. 



154 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

" Alone 
The daughter of Alcinous kept her place, 
For Pallas gave her courage and forbade 
Her limb to tremble. So she waited there." 

Who that has inhaled the fragrance of her pres- 
ence from these pages can ever forget the white- 
armed Nausicaa ! Tlien follows the picture of the 
palace, a feast for the imagination, the most magnifi- 
cent description, I think, in the whole poem. 

" For on every side beneath 
The lofty roof of that magnanimous king 
A glory shone as of the summer moons." 

Kead from 1. 100-128, book vii. Next we 
witness the splendid hospitality proffered to the 
stranger guest. For again and again in this poem 
the noble sentiment is repeated, that the stranger 
and the poor are sent from Jove. Then we see 
Ulysses engaged in the games, outdoing the rest, or 
standing aside and watching " the twinkle of the 
dancer's feet." The language, too, used on these 
occasions is strikingly noble, so courteous and well- 
chosen, so simple and dignified, conveying rich mean- 
ings in the fewest possible words. What can be 
finer, e. g., than Nausicaa's farewell to Ulysses ? 

" Now. when the maids 
Had seen him bathed, and had anointed him 
With oil, and put his sumptuous mantle on, 
And tunic, forth he issued from the bath, 
And came to those who sat before their wine. 
Nausicaa, goddess-like in beauty, stood 
Beside a pillar of that noble roof. 
And, looking on Ulysses as he passed, 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 155 

Admired, and said to him in winged words — 
' Stranger, farewell, and in thy native land 
Remember thou hast owed thy life to me.' " 

JSTausicaa, it is evident, loves Ulysses ; she stands 
beside a pillar, a favorite attitude for beautiful 
women with Homer, and as Ulysses passes, she 
addresses to him those few words so fraught with 
tenderness and renunciation. Ulysses's own speech 
to Arete, too, is a model of simplicity and dignity, 
possessing, it seems to me, something of the same 
quality which we admire in the speeches of Othello. 
But throughout this narrative, pre-eminent above all 
the other figures in it is the figure of the queen her- 
self, of Arete. Such a daughter as l^ausicaa could 
only come from such a mother. To her Ulysses is 
advised to address his supplication. She is the wise 
matron, the peace-maker who composes the angry 
feuds of the men. And she possesses the whole 
heart and devotion of her husband. 

" Her Alcinous made his wife 
And honored her as nowhere else on earth 
Is any woman honored who bears charge 
Over a husband's household. From their hearts 
Her children pay her reverence, and the king 
And all the people, for they look on her 
As if she were a goddess. When she goes 
Abroad into the streets, all welcome her 
With acclamations. Never does she fail 
In wise discernment, but decides disputes 
Kindly and justly between man and man. 
And if thou gain her favor there is hope 
That thou raayst see thy friends once more." 



156 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN, 

"We have then as illustrations of conjugal fidelity : 
the main picture, Ulysses and Penelope ; the com- 
panion picture, Alcinous and Arete ; and, as a foil to 
set off both, there looms up every now and then in 
the course of the poem, that unhappy pair, Aga- 
memnon and Clytemnestra, the latter, the type of 
conjugal infidelity, from which the soul of Homer 
revolts. This foil is very skillfully used. At 
the very end of the poem, when everything is 
hastening toward a happy consummation, Ulysses 
having slain the suitors and being about to be re- 
united with his wife, we are introduced into the 
world of shades, where the ghost of Agamemnon 
once more rehearses the story of Clytemnestra's 
treachery. At that moment the spirits of the suitors 
come flying down to Hades, and the happier destiny 
of Ulysses is thus brought into clearer relief by 
contrast. 

The next ethical element of which I have to 
speak is the JiUal condiict of Telemachus. In him 
the spirit of adventure has developed into a desire 
to help his father. In the early part of the poem 
he announces that he is now a child no longer. He 
begins to assert authority. And yet in his home he 
continues to be treated as a child. The suitors 
laugh at him, his own mother can not bear to think 
that he should go out into the wide world alone, and 
the news of his departure is accordingly concealed 
from her. Very fine are the words in which her 
mother's love expresses itself when she discovers his 
absence : 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 157 

" And her knees failed her and her heart 
Sank as she heard. Long time she could not speak ; 
Her eyes were filled with tears, and her clear voice 
Was choked ; yet, finding words at length, she said : 
' herald ! wherefore should my son have gone ? ' 

"... Now, my son, 
My best beloved, goes to sea — a boy 
Unused to hardship and unskilled to deal 
With strangers. More 1 sorrow for his sake 
Than for his father's. I am filled with fear." 

She lies outstretched upon the floor of her chamber 
overcome with grief (iv, 910). Telemachus, how- 
ever, has gone forth in search of his sire. He finds 
a friend in Pisistratus, the son of Nestor, and the 
two youths join company on the journey. They 
come to the court of Menelaus, King of Sparta. 
There, as everywhere, Telemachus hears men speak 
of his great father in terms of the highest admira- 
tion and praise, and the desire mounts in his soul to 
do deeds worthy of such a parent. "What better 
stimulation can we oifer to growing children than this 
recital of Telemachus's development from boyhood 
into manhood ? His reception at the court of Mene- 
laus affords an opportunity to dwell again upon the 
generous and delicate hospitality of the ancient 
Greeks. First, the guest is received at the gates ; 
then conducted to the bath and anointed ; then, 
when he is seated on a silver or perchance a golden 
throne, a handmaiden advances with a silver ewer 
and a golden jug to pour water on his hands ; then a 
noble banquet is set out for his delectation ; and only 
then, after all these rites of hospitality have been com- 



158 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

pleted, is inquiry made as to his name and liis errand. 
" The stranger and the poor are sent from Jove." 
The stranger and the poor were welcome in the 
Grecian house. Telemachus returns to Ithaca, es- 
capes the ambush which the murderous suitors liad 
set for him, and arrives just in time to help his 
father in his last desperate struggle. It is he, 
Telemachus, who conveys the weapons from the 
hall, he who pinions the treacherous Melantheus 
and renders him harmless. He quits himself 
like a man — discreet, able to keep his counsel, 
and brave and quick in the moment of decisive 
action. 

The third element which attracts our attention 
is the resourceful intelligence of Ulysses, or his 
jpresence of mind amid danger. This is exhibited 
on many occasions ; for instance, in the cave of 
Polyphemus ; where he saves his companions by 
concealing them in the fleece of the giant's flock, 
and at the time of the great shipwreck, before he 
reaches Phseacia. His raft is shattered, and he is 
plunged into the sea. He clings to one of the frag- 
ments of the wreck, but from this too is dislodged. 
For two days and nights he struggles in the black, 
stormy waters. At last he approaches the shore, 
but is nearly dashed to pieces on the rocks. He 
swims again out to sea, until, finding himself oppo- 
site the mouth of a river, he strikes out for this and 
lands in safety. Pallas Athene has guided him. But 
Pallas Athene is only another name for his own cour- 
age and presence of mind. In the same connection 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 159 

may be related the story of Ulysses's escape from 
tlie Sirens and from the twin perils of Scylla and 
Charybdis. The Sirens, with their bewitching songs, 
seek to lure him and his companions to destruction. 
But he stops the ears of his companions with wax so 
that they can not hear, and causes himself to be bound 
with stout cords to the mast, so that, though he may 
hear, he can not follow. There is an obvious lesson 
contained in this allegory. When about to be ex- 
posed to temptation, if you know that you are weak, 
do not even listen to the seductive voices. But no 
matter how strong you believe yourself to be, at 
least give such pledges and place yourself in such 
conditions that you may be prevented from yield- 
ing. From the monster Charybdis, too, Ulysses 
escapes by extraordinary presence of mind and 
courage. He leaps upward to catch the fig-tree 
in the moment when his ship disappears beneath 
him in the whirlpool ; then, when it is cast up 
again, lets go his hold and is swept out into safe 
waters. 

The fourth ethical element which we select from 
the poem is the veneration shown to grandparents. 
I have already remarked, in a former lecture, that 
if parents wish to retain the reverence of their chil- 
dren they can not do better than in their turn to 
show themselves reverent toward their own aged 
and enfeebled parents. Of such conduct the Odyssey 
offers us a number of choice examples. Thus 
Achilles, meeting Ulysses in the realm of shades, 
says that the hardest part of his lot is to think of 



160 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

his poor old father, wlio has no one now to defend 
him, and who, being weak, is hkely to be neglected 
and despised. If only he, the strong son, could re- 
turn to the light of day, how he would protect his 
aged parent and insure him the respect due to his 
gray hairs ! Penelope is advised to send to Laertes, 
Telemachus's grandfather, to secure his aid against 
the suitors. But with delicate consideration she 
keeps the bad news from him, saying : " He has 
enough grief to bear on account of the loss of his 
son Ulysses ; let me not add to his burden." Again, 
how beautiful is the account of the meeting of La- 
ertes and Ulysses after the return and triumph of 
the latter. On the farm, at some distance from the 
town, Ulysses seeks his aged father. Laertes is busy 
digging. He, a king, wears a peasant's rusfic garb 
and lives a life of austere self-denial, grieving night 
and day for his absent son. "When Ulysses men- 
tions his name, Laertes at first does not believe. 
Then the hero approaches the bent and decrepit old 
man, and becomes for the moment a child again. 
lie brings up recollections of his earliest boyhood ; 
he reminds his father of the garden-patch which he 
set aside for him long, long ago ; of the trees and 
vines which he gave him to plant; and then the 
father realizes that the mighty man before him is 
indeed his son. 

The structural lines of the Odyssey are clearly 
marked, and can easily be followed. First, we are 
shown the house of Ulysses bereft of its master. 
The noisy crowd of suitors are carousing in the hall ; 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 161 

the despairing Penelope weaves lier web in an 
upper chamber ; the resolve to do and dare for his 
father's sake awakens in Telemachus's heart. Next 
Ulysses on the way home, dismissed by Calypso, 
arrives at Phseacia, from which port without fur- 
ther misadventures he reaches Ithaca. The stay in 
the palace of the Phseacian king gives an oppor- 
tunity for a rehearsal of the previous sufferings and 
adventures of the hero. Then follow the prepara- 
tions for the conflict with the suitors ; the appear- 
ance of Ulysses in his own palace in the guise of a 
beggar ; the insults and blows which he receives 
at the hands of his rivals and their menials ; the 
bloody fight, etc. In relating the story I should 
follow the course of the poem, laying stress upon 
the ethical elements enumerated above. The fight 
which took place in the palace halls with closed 
doors should be merely mentioned, its bloody details 
omitted. The hanging of the maidens, the trick of 
Yulcan related in a previous book, and other minor 
episodes, which the teacher will distinguish with- 
out difficulty, should likewise be passed over. The 
recognition scenes are managed with wonderful 
skill. The successive recognitions seem to take 
place inversely in the order of previous connection 
and intimacy with Ulysses. The son, who was a 
mere babe when his father left and did not know 
him at all, recognizes him first. This, moreover, 
is necessary in order that his aid may be secured 
for the coming struggle. ISText comes Argus, the 
dog. ^j 



162 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

" While over Argus the black night of death 
Came suddenly as he had seen 
Ulysses, absent now for twenty years." 

Next comes the nurse Eurycleia, who recognizes 
him by a scar inflicted by the white tnsk of a boar 
whom he hunted on Parnassus's heights ; then his 
faithful followers ; last of all, and slowly and with 
difiiculty, the wife who had so yearned for him. 
Her impetuous son could not understand her tardi- 
ness. Vehemently he chid her : " Mother, unfeel- 
ing mother, how canst thou remain aloof, how keep 
from taking at my father's side thy place to talk with 
him and question him ? Mother, thy heart is harder 
than a stone." But she only sat opposite to Ulysses 
and gazed and gazed and wondered. Ulysses himself, 
at last, in despair at her impenetrable silence, ex- 
claimed, " An iron heart is hers." But it was only 
that she could not believe. It seemed so incredible 
to her that the long waiting should be over; that 
the desire of her heart should really be fulfilled ; 
that this man before her should be indeed the hus- 
band, the long-lost husband, and not a mocking 
dream. But when at last it dawned upon her, when 
he gave her the token of the mystery known only 
to him and to her, then indeed the ice of incredulity 
melted from her heart, and her knees faltered and 
the tears streamed from her eyes, " and she rose and 
ran to him and flung her arm about his neck and 
kissed his brow, and he, too, wept as in his arms he 
held his dearly loved and faithful wife." "As wel- 
come as the land to those who swim the deep, tossed 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 163 

bj the billow and the blast, and few are those who 
from the hoary ocean reach the shore, their limbs all 
crested with the brine, these gladly climb the sea- 
beach and are safe — so welcome was her husband to 
her eyes, nor would her fair white arms release his 
neck," 

And so with the words uttered by the shade of 
Agamemnon we may fitly close this retrospect of 
the poem : 

" Son of Laertes, fortunate and wise, 
Ulysses ! thou by feats of eminent might 
And valor dost possess thy wife again. 
And nobly minded is thy blameless queen, 
The daughter of Icarius, faithfully 
Remembering him to whom she gave her troth 
While yet a virgin. Never shall the fame 
Of his great valor perish, and the gods 
Themselves shall frame, for those who dwell on earth. 
Sweet strains in praise of sage Penelope." 

Well might the rhapsodes in the olden days, clad 
in embroidered robes, with golden wreaths about 
their brows, recite such verses as these to the assem- 
bled thousands and ten thousands. Well might the 
Hellenic race treasure these records of filial loyalty, 
of maiden purity, of wifely tenderness and fidelity, 
of bravery, and of intelligence. And well may we, 
too, desire that this golden stream flowing down 
to us from ancient Greece shall enter the cur- 
rent of our children's lives to broaden and enrich 
them. 

I have not space at my command to attempt a 
minute analysis of the Iliad, and shall content my- 



164: MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

self with mentioning the main significant points. 
The Iliad is full of the noises of war, the hurtling 
of arrows, the flashing of swords, the sounding of 
spears on metal shields, the groans of the dying, 
"whose eyes black darkness covers." The chief 
virtues illustrated are valor, hospitality, conjugal af- 
fection, respect for the aged. I offer the following 
suggestions to the teacher. After describing the 
wrath of Achilles, relate the meeting of Diomedes 
and Glaucus, their hostile encounter, and their mag- 
nanimous embrace on discovering that they are 
guest friends. Eead the beautiful passage begin- 
ning with the words, " Even as the generations of 
leaves, such are those likewise of men." Dwell on 
the parting of Hector and Andromache. ISTote 
that she has lost her father, her lady mother, and 
her seven brothers. Hector is to her father, mother, 
brother, and husband, all in one. Note also Hec- 
tor's prayer for his son that the latter may excel 
him in bravery. As illustrative of friendship, tell 
the story of Achilles's grief for Patroclus, how he 
lies prone upon the ground, strewing his head with 
dust ; how he follows the body lamenting ; how he 
declares that though the dead forget their dead in 
Hades, even there he would not forget his dear 
comrade. Next tell of the slaying of Hector, 
and how Achilles honors the suppliant Priam and 
restores to him the body of his son. It is the mem- 
ory of his own aged father, which the sight of Priam 
recalls, that melts Achilles's heart, and they weep 
together, each for his own dead. Finally, note the 



THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. 165 

tribute paid to Hector's delicate chivalry in the 
lament of Helen.* 

* In connection with the Homeric poems selections from 
Greek mythology may be used, such as the story of Hercules, 
of Theseus, of Perseus, the story of the Argonauts, and others. 
These, too, breathe the spirit of adventure and illustrate the 
virtues of courage, perseverance amid difficulties, chivalry, etc. 



GEAMMAK COUKSE. 
LESSORS OK DUTY. 



XI. 
THE DUTY OF ACQUIKING KNOWLEDGE. 

In setting out on a new path it is well to deter- 
mine beforehand the goal we hope to reach. We 
are about to begin the discussion of the granunar 
course, which is intended for children between 
twelve and fifteen years of age, and accordingly ask : 
What result can we expect to attain ? One thing is 
certain, we must continue to grade our teaching, to 
adapt each successive step to the capacities of the 
pupils, to keep pace with their mental development. 

The due gradation of moral teaching is all-im- 
portant. Whether the gradations we propose are 
correct is, of course, a matter for discussion ; but, 
at all events, a point will be gained if we shall have 
brought home forcibly to teachers the necessity of a 
graded, of a progressive system. 

In the primary course we have set before the 
pupils examples of good and bad conduct, with a 
view to training their powers of moral perception. 
We are now ready to advance from percepts to con- 
cepts. We have endeavored to cultivate the faculty 
of observation, we can now attempt the higher task 
of generaHzation. In the primary course we have 
tried to make the pupils perceive moral distinctions ; 
in the grammar course we shall try to make them 

(169) 



170 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

reason about moral distinctions, help them to gain 
notions of duty, to arrive at principles or maxims 
of good conduct. The grammar course, therefore, 
will consist in the main of lessons on duty. 

What has just been said, however, requires fur- 
ther explanation to prevent misapprehension. I 
have remarked that the pupil is now to reach out 
toward concepts of duty, and to establish for himself 
maxims or principles of conduct. But of what na- 
ture shall these maxims be ? The philosopher Kant 
has proposed the following maxim : " So act that the 
maxim underlying thy action may justify itself to 
thy mind as a universal law of conduct." According 
to him, the note of universality is the distinctive 
characteristic of all ethical conduct. The school of 
Bentham proposes a different maxim : " So act that 
the result of thy action shall tend to insure the 
greatest happiness of the greatest number." Theo- 
logians tell us so to act that our will may harmonize 
with the will of God. But pupils of the grammar 
grade are not ripe to understand such metaphysical 
and theological propositions. And, moreover, as 
was pointed out in our first lecture, it would be a 
grave injustice to teach in schools supported by all 
ethical first principles which are accepted only by 
some. We are not concerned with first principles. 
We exclude the discussion of them, be they philo- 
sophical or theological, from the school. But there 
are certain secondary principles, certain more con- 
crete rules of behavior, which nevertheless possess 
the character of generahzations, and these will suf- 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 171 

fice for our purpose. And witli respect to these 
there is really no difference of opinion among the 
different schools and sects, and on them as a founda- 
tion we can build. 

It is our business to discover such secondary 
principles, and in our instruction to lead the pupil 
to the recognition of them The nature of the for- 
mulas of duty which we have in mind — formulas 
which shall express the generalized moral experience 
of civilized mankind, will appear more plainly if we 
examine the processes by which we arrive at them. 
An example will best elucidate : Suppose that I am 
asked to give a lesson on the duty of truthfulness. 
At the stage which we have now reached it will not 
be enough merely to emphasize the general com- 
mandment against lying. The general commandment 
leaves in the pupil's mind a multitude of doubts un- 
solved. Shall I always tell the truth — that is to say, 
the whole truth, as I know it, and to everybody ? 
Is it never right to withhold the truth, or even to 
say what is the contrary of true, as, e. g., to the sick 
or insane. Such questions as these are constantly 
being asked. What is needed is a rule of veracity 
which shall leave the general principle of truth- 
speaking unshaken, and shall yet cover all these ex- 
ceptional cases. How to arrive at such a rule ? I 
should go about it in the following manner, and the 
method here described is the one which is intended 
to be followed throughout the entire course of les- 
sons on duty. I should begin by presenting a con- 
crete case. A certain child had broken a precious 



172 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

vase. "When asked wlietlier it had done so, it an- 
swered, " No." How do yon characterize such a 
statement ? As a falsehood. The active participation 
of the pupils in the discussion is essential. Prop- 
erly questioned, they will join in it heart and soul. 
There must be constant give and take between 
teacher and class. Upon the fulfillment of this con- 
dition the value of this sort of teaching entirely 
depends. The teacher then proceeds to analyze the 
instance above given, or any other that he may se- 
lect from those which the pupils offer him. The 
child says no when it should have said yes, or a per- 
son says black when he should have said white. In 
what does the falsehood of such statements consist ? 
In the circumstance that the words spoken do not 
correspond to the facts. Shall we then formulate 
the rule of veracity as follows : Make thy words 
correspond to the facts ; and shall we infer that any 
one whose words do not correspond to the facts is a 
liar ? But clearly this is not so. The class is asked 
to give instances tending to prove the insufiiciency 
of the" proposed formula. Before the days of Co- 
pernicus it was generally asserted that the sun re- 
volves around the earth. Should we be justified in 
setting down the many excellent persons who made 
such statements as liars ? Yet their words did 
not correspond to the facts. Yery true ; but they 
did not intend to deviate from the facts — they did 
not know better. Shall we then change the formula 
so as to read : Intend that thy words shall conform 
to the facts ? But the phrase " correspond to the 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 173 

facts " needs to be made more explicit. Cases occur 
in which a statement does correspond to the facts, 
or, at least, seems to do so, and yet a contemptible 
falsehood is implied. The instance of the truant 
boy is in point who entered the school-building five 
minutes before the close of the exercises, and on 
being asked at home whether he had been at school, 
promptly answered " Yes " ; and so he had been for 
five minutes. But in this case the boy suppressed a 
part of the facts — and, moreover, the essential part — 
namely, that he had been absent from school for 
five hours and fifty-five minutes. Cases of mental 
reservation and the like fall under the same con- 
demnation. The person who took an oath in court, 
using the words, " As truly as I stand on this stone," 
but who had previously filled his shoes with earth, 
suppressed the essential fact — viz., that he had filled 
his shoes with earth. 

Shall we then formulate the rule in this wise : 
Intend to make thy words correspond to the essen- 
tial facts ? But even this will not entirely satisfy. 
For there are cases, surely, in which we deliberately 
frame our words in such a way that they shall not 
correspond to the essential facts — for instance, if 
we should meet a murderer who should ask us in 
which direction his intended victim had fled, or in 
the case of an insane person intent on suicide, or of 
the sick in extreme danger, whom the communication 
of bad news would kill. How can we justify such a 
procedure ? "We can justify it on the ground that 
language as a means of communication is intended 



1Y4 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

to further tlie rational purposes of human life, and 
not conversely are the rational purposes of life to 
be sacrificed to any merely formal principle of truth- 
telling, A person who, like the murderer, is about 
to use the fact conveyed to him by my words as a 
weapon with which to kill a fellow-being has no 
right to be put in possession of the fact. An insane 
person, who can not use the truthful communications 
of others except for irrational ends, is also outside 
the pale of those to whom such tools can properly 
be intrusted. And so are the sick, when so enfeebled 
that the shock of grief would destroy them. For 
the rational use of grief is to provoke in us a moral 
reaction, to rouse in us the strength to bear our 
heavy burdens, and, in bearing, to learn invalu- 
able moral lessons. But those who are physically 
too weak to rally from the first shock of grief are 
unable to secure this result, and they must there- 
fore be classed, for the time being, as persons not 
in a condition to make rational use of the facts of 
life. It is not from pain and suffering that we are 
permitted to shield them. Pain and suffering we 
must be willing both to endure and also to inflict 
upon those whom we love best, if necessary. Reason 
can and should triumph over pain. But M'hen the 
reasoning faculty is impaired, or when the body is 
too weak to respond to the call of reason, the obli- 
gation of trnth-telling ceases. I am not unaware 
that this is a dangerous doctrine to teach. I should 
always take the greatest pains to impress upon my 
pupils that the irrational condition, which alone 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 175 

justifies the withholding of the truth, must be so 
obvious that there can be no mistake about it, as in 
the case of the murderer who, with knife in hand, 
pursues his victim, or of the insane, or of the sick, 
in regard to whom the physician positively declares 
that the shock of bad news would endanger life. 
But I do think that we are bound to face these ex- 
ceptional cases, and to discuss them M'itli our pupils. 
For the latter know as well as we that in certain 
exceptional situations the best men do not tell the 
truth, that in such situations no one tells the truth, 
except he be a moral fanatic. And unless these ex- 
ceptional cases are clearly marked off and explained 
and justified, the general authority of truth will be 
shaken, or at least the obligation of veracity will be- 
come very much confused in the pupil's mind. In 
my opinion, the confusion which does exist on this 
subject is largely due to a failure to distinguish 
between inward truthfulness and truthfulness as re- 
flected in speech. The law of inward truthfulness 
tolerates no exceptions. We should always, and as 
far as possible, be absolutely truthful, in our think- 
ing, in our estimates, in our judgments. But lan- 
guage is a mere vehicle for the communication of 
thoughts and facts to others, and in communicating 
thoughts and facts we are bound to consider in how 
far others are fit to receive them. Shall we then 
formulate the rule of veracity thus : Intend to 
communicate the essential facts to those who are 
capable of making a rational use of them. I think 
that some such formula as this might answer. I 



176 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

am not disposed to stickle for this particular plirase- 
ology. But the formula as stated illustrates my 
thought, and also the method by which the formulas, 
which we shall have to teach in the grammar course 
are to be reached. It is the inductive method. 
First a concrete case is presented, and a rule of 
conduct is hypothetically suggested, which fits this 
particular case. Then other cases are adduced. It 
is discovered that the rule as it stands thus far 
does not fit them. It must therefore be modi- 
fied, expanded. Then, in succession, other and 
more complex cases, to which the rule may possibly 
apply are brought forward, until every case we can 
think of has been examined ; and when the rule 
is brought into, such shape that it fits them all, 
we have a genuine moral maxim, a safe rule for 
practical guidance, and the principle involved in 
the rule is one of those secondary principles in re- 
spect to which men of every sect and school can 
agree. It needs hardly to be pointed out how much 
a casuistical discussion of this sort tends to stimu- 
late interest in moral problems, and to quicken the 
moral judgment, I can say, from an experience of 
over a dozen years, that pupils between twelve and 
fifteen years of age are immensely interested in such 
discussions, and are capable of making the subtilest 
distinctions. Indeed, the directness with which they 
pronounce their verdict on fine questions of right 
and wrong often has in it something almost startling 
to older persons, whose contact with the world has 
reconciled them to a somewhat less exacting standard. 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 1Y7 

But liere a caution is necessary. Some children 
seem to be too fond of casuistry. They take an in- 
tellectual pleasure in drawing fine distinctions, and 
questions of conscience are apt to become to them 
mere matter of mental gymnastics. Such a tend- 
ency must be sternly repressed whenever it shows 
itself. In fact, reasoning about moral principles is 
always attended with a certain peril. After all, the 
actual morality of the world depends largely on the 
moral habits which mankind have formed in the 
course of many ages, and which are transmitted 
from generation to generation. Now a habit acts a 
good deal like an instinct. Its force depends upon 
what has been called unconscious cerebration. As 
soon as we stop to reason about our habits, their 
hold on us is weakened, we hesitate, we become un- 
certain, the interference of the mind acts like a 
brake. It is for this reason that throughout the pri- 
mary course, we have confined ourselves to what the 
Germans call Anschauung, the close observation of 
examples with a view of provoking imitation or re- 
pugnance, and thus strengthening the force of habit. 
"Why, then, introduce analysis now, it may be asked. 
"Why not be content with still further confirming 
the force of good habits ? My answer is that the 
force of habit must be conserved and still further 
strengthened, but that analysis, too, becomes neces- 
sary at this stage. And why ? Because habits are 
always specialized. A person governed by habits 
falls into a certain routine, and moves along easily 

and safely as long as the conditions repeat them- 
12 



178 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

selves to wliicli his habits are adjusted. But when 
confronted by a totally new set of conditions, he is 
often quite lost and helpless. Just as a person 
who is solely guided by common sense in the ordi- 
nary afEairs of life, is apt to be stranded when 
compelled to face circumstances for which his pre- 
vious experience affords no precedent. It is neces- 
sary, therefore, to extract from the moral habits 
the latent rules of conduct which underlie them, 
and to state these in a general form which the mind 
can grasp and retain, and which it will be able 
to apply to new conditions as they arise. To this 
end analysis and the formulation of rules are indis- 
pensable. But in order, at the same time, not to 
break the force of habit, the teacher should proceed 
in the following manner : He should always take 
the moral habit for granted. He should never give 
his pupils to understand that he and they are about 
to examine whether, for instance, it is wrong or 
not wrong to lie. The commandment against lying 
is assumed, and its obligation acknowledged at the 
outset. The only object of the analysis is to discern 
more exactly what is meant by lying, to define the 
rule of veracity with greater precision and circum- 
spectness, so that we may be enabled to fulfill the 
commandment more perfectly. It is implied in 
what I have said that the teacher should not treat 
of moral problems as if he were dealing with prob- 
lems in arithmetic. The best thing he can do for 
his pupils — better than any particular lesson he can 
teach — will be to communicate to them the spirit of 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 179 

moral earnestness. And this spirit lie can not com- 
municate unless he be full of it himself. The teacher 
should consecrate himself to his task ; he should be 
penetrated by a sense of the lofty character of the 
subject which he teaches. Even a certain atten- 
tion to externals is not superfluous. The lessons, in 
the case of the younger children, may be accompa- 
nied by song ; the room in which the classes meet 
may be hung with appropriate pictures, and espe- 
cially is it desirable that the faces of great and good 
men and women shall look down upon the pupils 
from the walls. The instruction should be given 
by word of mouth; for the right text-books do not 
yet exist, and even the best books must always act 
as a bar to check that flow of moral influence which 
should come from the teacher to quicken the class. 
To make sure that the pupils understand what they 
have been taught, they should be required from 
time to time to reproduce the subject matter of the 
lessons in their own language, and using their own 
illustrations, in the form of essays. 

And now, after this general introduction, let us 
take up the lessons on the duties in their proper 
order. What is the proper order ? This question, 
you will remember, was discussed in the lecture on 
the classification of duties. It was there stated that 
the life of man from childhood upward, may be 
divided into periods, that each period has its special 
duties, and that there is in each some one central duty 
around which the others may be grouped. During 
the school age the paramount duty of the pupil is 



180 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

to study. We shall therefore begin with the duties 
which are connected with the pursuit of knowledge. 
We shall then take up the duties which relate to the 
physical life and the feelings ; next, the duties which 
arise in the family ; after that the duties which we 
owe to all men ; and lastly we will consider in an 
elementary way the civic duties. 

The Duty of acquiring Knoioledge. — In starting 
the discussion of any particular set of duties, it is 
advisable, as has been said, to present some concrete 
case, and biographical or historical examples are par- 
ticularly useful. I have sometimes begun the lesson 
on the duty of acquiring knowledge by telling the 
story of Cleanthes and that of Hillel. Cleanthes, a 
poor boy, was anxious to attend the school of Zeno. 
But he was compelled to work for his bread, and 
could not spend his days in study as he longed to 
do. He was, however, so eager to learn that he 
found a way of doing his work by night. He 
helped a gardener to water his plants, and also en- 
gaged to grind corn on a hand-mill for a certain 
woman. Now the neighbors, who knew that he was 
poor, and who never saw him go to work, were 
puzzled to think how he obtained the means to live. 
They suspected him of stealing, and he was called 
before the Judge to explain. The Judge addressed 
him severely, and commanded him to tell the truth. 
Cleanthes requested that the gardener and the woman 
might be sent for, and they testified that he had 
been in the habit of working for them by night. 
The Judge was touched by his great zeal for knowl- 



THE DUTY OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 181 

edge, acquitted him of tlie charge, and offered him 
a gift of money. But Zeno would not permit him 
to take the gift. Cleanthes became the best pupil 
of Zeno, and grew up to be a very wise and learned 
man, indeed one of the most famous philosophers 
of the Stoic school. The story of Hillel runs as 
follows : There was once a poor lad named Hillel. 
His parents were dead, and he had neither relatives 
nor friends. He was anxious to go to school, but, 
though he worked hard, he did not earn enough to 
pay the tuition fee exacted at the door. So he de- 
cided to save money by spending only half his earn- 
ings for food. He ate little, and that little was of 
poor quality, but he was perfectly happy, because 
with what he laid aside he could now pay the door- 
keeper and find a place inside, where he might listen 
and learn. This he did for some time, but one day 
he was so unlucky as to lose his situation. He had 
now no money left to buy bread, but he hardly 
thought of that, so much was he grieved at the 
thought that he should never get back to his beloved 
school. He begged the door-keeper to let him in, 
but the surly man refused to do so. In his despair 
a happy thought occurred to him. He had noticed 
a skylight on the roof. He climbed up to this, and 
to his delight found that through a crack he could 
hear all that was said inside. So he sat there and 
listened, and did not notice that evening was coming 
on, and that the snow was beginning to fall. Kext 
morning when the teachers and pupils assembled as 
usual, every one remarked how dark the room 



182 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

seemed. The sun too was shining again by this time 
quite brightly outside. Suddenly some one hap- 
pened to look up and with an exclamation of sur- 
prise pointed out the figure of a boy against the 
skylight. Quickly they all ran outside, climbed to 
the roof, and there, covered with snow, quite stifE 
and almost dead, they found poor Hillel. They 
carried him indoors, warmed his cold limbs, and 
worked hard to restore him to life. He was at 
last resuscitated, and from this time on was al- 
lowed to attend the school without paying. Later 
he became a great teacher. He lived in Palestine 
at about the time of Jesus. He was admired for 
his learning, but even more for his good deeds and 
his unfailing kindness to every one. The question 
is now raised, Why did Cleanthes work at night in- 
stead of seeking rest, and why did Hillel remain 
outside in the bitter cold and snow ? The pupils 
will readily answer. Because they loved knowledge. 
But why is knowledge so desirable ? With this in- 
terrogatory we are fairly launched on the discussion 
of our subject. The points to be developed are 
these : 

First, knowledge is indispensable as a means of 
making one's way in the world. Show the helpless- 
ness of the ignorant. Compare the skilled laborer 
with the unskilled. Give instances of merchants, 
statesmen, etc., whose success was due to steady ap- 
plication and superior knowledge. Knowledge is 
power (namely, in the struggle for existence). 

Secondly, knowledge is honor. An ignorant 



THE DUTY OP ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 183 

person is despised. Knowledge wins us the esteem 
of our fellow-men. 

Thirdly, knowledge is joy in a twofold sense. 
As the perception of light to the eye of the body, so 
is the perception of truth to the eye of the mind. The 
mind experiences an intrinsic pleasure in seeing things 
in their true relations. Furthermore, mental growth 
is accompanied by the joy of successful effort. This 
can be explained even to a boy or girl of thirteen. 
Have you ever tried hard to solve a problem in 
algebra? Perhaps you have spent several hours 
over it. It lias baffled you. At last, after repeated 
trials, you see your way clear, the solution is within 
your grasp. What a sense of satisfaction you ex- 
perience then. It is the feeling of successful mental 
effort that gives you this satisfaction. You rejoice 
in having triumphed over difficulties, and the greater 
the difficulty, the more baffling and complex the prob- 
lems, the greater is the satisfaction in solving them. 

Fourthly, knowledge enables us to do good to 
others. Speak of the use which physicians make of 
their scientific training to alleviate suffering and 
save life. Hefer to the manifold applications of sci- 
ence which have changed the face of modern society, 
and have contributed so largely to the moral progress 
of the world. Point out that all true philanthropy, 
every great social reform, implies a superior grasp 
of the problems to be solved, as well as devotion to 
the cause of humanity. In accordance with the line 
of argument just sketched the rule for the pursuit of 
knowledge may be successively expanded as follows : 



184 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

Seek knowledge that you may succeed in the 
struggle for existence. 

Seek knowledge that you may gain the esteem 
of jour fellow-men. 

Seek knowledge for the sake of the satisfaction 
"which the attainment of it will give you. 

Seek knowledge that you may be able to do good 
to others. 

These points suffice for the present. In the ad- 
vanced course we shall return to the consideration 
of the intellectual duties. I would also recommend 
that the moral teacher, not content with dwelling on 
the uses of knowledge in general, should go through 
the list of subjects which are comm^only taught in 
school, such as geography, history, language, etc., 
and explain the value of each. This is too com- 
monly neglected. 

Having stationed the duty of acquiring knowl- 
edge in the center, connect with it the various lesser 
duties of school life, such as punctual attendance, or- 
der, diligent and conscientious preparation of home 
lessons, etc. These are means to an end, and should 
be represented as such. He who desires the end will 
desire the means. Get your pupils to love knowl- 
edge, and the practice of these minor virtues will 
follow of itself. Other matters might be introduced 
in connection wdth what has been mentioned, but 
enough has been said to indicate the point of view 
from which the whole subject of intellectual duty 
should, as I think, be treated in the present course. 



XII. 

DUTIES WHICH EELATE TO THE 
PHYSICAL LIFE. 

Of the duties which relate to the physical life, 
the principal one is that of self-preservation, and 
this involves the prohibition of suicide. When one 
reflects on the abject life which many persons are 
forced to lead, on their poverty in the things which 
make existence desirable and the lack of moral 
stamina which often goes together with such condi- 
tions, the wonder is that the number of suicides is 
not much greater than it actually is. It is true most 
people cling to life instinctively, and have an in- 
stinctive horror of death. Nevertheless, the force 
of instinct is by no means a sufficient deterrent in 
all cases, and the number of suicides is just now 
alarmingly on the increase. If we were here con- 
sidering the subject of suicide in general we should 
have to enter at large into the causes of this in- 
crease ; we should have to examine the relations sub- 
sisting between the increase of suicide and the in- 
crease of divorce, and inquire into those pathological 
conditions of modern society of which both are the 
symptoms ; but our business is to consider the ethics 
of the matter, not the causes. The ethics of suicide 
resolves itself into the question, Is it justifiable under 

(185) 



186 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

any circumstances to take one's life ? You may ob- 
ject that this is not a fit subject to discuss with pupils 
of thirteen or fourteen. "Why not ? They are old 
enough to understand the motives which ordinarily 
lead to suicide, and also the reasons which forbid it — 
especially the most important reason, namely, that 
we live not merely or primarily to be happy, but to 
help on as far as we can the progress of things, and 
therefore that we are not at liberty to throw life 
away like an empty shell when we have ceased to 
enjoy it. The discussion of suicide is indeed of the 
greatest use because it affords an opportunity early 
in the course of our lessons on duty to impress this 
cardinal truth, to describe upon the moral globe this 
great meridian from which all the virtues take their 
bearings. However, in accordance with the induct- 
ive method, we must approach this idea by degrees. 
The first position I should take is that while suffer- 
ing is often temporary, suicide is final. It is folly to 
take precipitately a step which can not be recalled. 
Yery often in moments of deep depression the future 
before us seems utterly dark, and in our firmament 
there appears not one star of hope ; but presently 
from some wholly unexpected quarter help comes. 
Fortune once more takes us into her good graces, 
and we are scarcely able to understand our past down- 
heartedness in view of the new happiness to which 
we have fallen heirs. Preserve thy life in view of 
the brighter chances which the future may have in 
store. This is a good rule as far as it goes, but it 
does not fit the more trying situations. For there 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. 187 

are cases where the fall from the heights of happi- 
ness is as complete as it is sudden, and the hope of 
recovering lost ground is reallj shut out. 

Take from actual life the case of a husband 
who fairly idolized his young wife and lost her by 
death three months after marriage. We may sup- 
pose that in the course of years he will learn to sub- 
mit to his destiny. "We may even hope that peace 
will come back to his poor heart, but we can not 
imagine that he will ever again be happy. Another 
case is that of a person who has committed a great 
wrong, the consequences of which are irreparable, 
and of which he must carry the agonizing recollection 
with him to the grave. Time may assuage the pangs 
of remorse, and religion may comfort him, but hap- 
piness can never be the portion of such as he. 

Still another instance — less serious, but of more 
frequent occurrence — is that of a merchant who has 
always occupied a commanding position in the mer- 
cantile community, and who, already advanced in 
years, is suddenly compelled to face bankruptcy. 
The thought of the hardships to which his family 
will be exposed, of his impending disgrace, drives 
him nearly to distraction. The question is, would 
the merchant, would those others, be justified in 
committing suicide ? Certainly not. The merchant, 
if he has the stuff of true manhood in him, will be- 
gin over again, at the bottom of the ladder if need 
be, will work to support his family, however nar- 
rowly. It would be the rankest selfishness in him 
to leave them to their fate. The conscience- stricken 



188 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

sinner must be willing to pay the penalty of his 
crime, to the end that he may be purified even seven 
times in the fire of repentance. And even the lover 
who has lost his bride will find, if he opens his eyes, 
that there is still work for him to do in life. The 
world is full of evils which require to be removed, 
full of burdens which require to be borne. If our 
own burden seems too heavy for us, there is a way 
of lightening it. We may add to it the burden of 
some one else, and ours will become lighter. Physic- 
ally, this would be impossible, but morally it is true. 
The rule of conduct, therefore, thus far reads. Pre- 
serve thy life in order to perform thy share of the 
work of the world. But the formula, even in this 
shape, is not yet entirely adequate, for there are those 
who can not take part in the work of the world, who 
can only suffer — invalids, e. g., who are permanently 
incapacitated, and whose infirmities make them a 
constant drag on the healthy lives of their friends. 
Why should not these be permitted to put an end to 
their miseries ? I should say that so long as there is 
the slightest hope of recovery, and even where this 
hope is wanting, so long as the physical pain is not 
so intense or so protracted as to paralyze the mental 
life altogether, they should hold out. They are not 
cut off from the true ends of human existence. By 
patient endurance, by the exercise of a sublime un- 
selfishness, they may even attain on their sick-beds 
a height of spiritual development which would 
otherwise be impossible ; and, in addition, they may 
become by their uncomplaining patience the sweet- 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. 189 

est, gentlest helpers of their friends, not useless, 
assuredly, but shining examples of what is best and 
noblest in human nature. The rule, therefore, should 
read : Preserve thy life in order to fulfill the duties 
of life, whether those duties consist in doing or in 
patiently suffering. As has been said long ago, we 
are placed on guard as sentinels. The sentinel must 
not desert his post. I think it possible to make the 
pupil in the grammar grade understand that suicide 
is selfish, that we are bound to live, even though 
life has ceased to be attractive, in order that we may 
perform our share of the world's work and help 
others and grow ourselves in moral stature. This 
does not, of course, imply any condemnation of that 
vast number of cases in which suicide is committed 
in consequence of mental aberration. 

In the advanced course we shall have to return 
to this subject, and shall there refer in extenso to 
the views of the Stoics. The morality of the Stoic 
philosophers in general is so high, and their influence 
even to this day so great, that their defense, or 
rather enthusiastic praise of suicide,* needs to be 
carefully examined. I am of the opinion that we 
have here a case in which metaphysical speculation 
has had the effect of distorting morality. Meta- 
physics in this respect resembles religion. On the 
one hand the influence of religion on morality has 
been highly beneficial, on the other it has been 
hurtful in the extreme — instance human sacri- 

* See, e. g., the famous passage in Seneca, Ue Ira, iii, 15. 



190 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

fices, religious wars, the Inquisition, etc. In like 
manner, philosophy, though not to the same extent, 
has both aided morality and injured it. I regard 
the Stoic declamations on suicide as an instance of 
the latter sort. The Stoic philosophy was panthe- 
istic. To live according to Nature was their prin- 
cipal maxim, or, more precisely, according to the 
reason in Nature. They maintained that in certain 
circumstances a man might find it impossible to live 
up to the rational standard ; he might, for instance, 
discover himself to be morally so weak as to be un- 
able to resist temptation, and in that case it would 
be better for him to retire from the scene and 
to seek shelter in the Eternal Reason, just as, 
to use their own simile, one who found the room in 
which he sat filled to an intolerable degree with 
smoke would not be blamed for withdrawing from 
it. It was their pantheism that led them to favor 
suicide, and in this respect it is my belief that the 
modern conscience, trained by the Old and New 
Testaments, has risen to a higher level than theirs. 
We moderns feel it impossible to admit that to the 
sane mind temptation can ever be so strong as to be 
truly irresistible. We always can resist if we will. 
We can, because we ought ; as Kant has taught us 
to put it. We always can because we always ought. 
Note. — Despite the rigorous disallowance of suicide in gen- 
eral plainly indicated in the above, I should not wish to be 
understood as saying that there are no circumstances whatever 
in which the taking of one's life is permissible. In certain rare 
and exceptional cases I believe it to be so. In the lecture as 
delivered I attempted a brief description of these exceptional 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. ]91 

cases, too brief, it appeared, to prevent most serious misconcep- 
tion. I deem it best, therefore, to defer the expression of my 
views on this delicate matter until an occasion arrives when I 
shall be able to articulate my thought in full detail, such as 
would here be impossible. 

From the commandment " Preserve thy life " it 
follows not only that we should not lay violent hands 
upon ourselves, but that we should do all in our 
power to develop and invigorate the body, in order 
that it may become an efficient instrument in the 
service of our higher aims. The teacher should in- 
form himself on the subject of the gymnastic ideal 
of the Greeks and consider in how far this ideal is 
applicable to modern conditions. In general, the 
teacher should explore as fully as possible the ethical 
problems on which he touches. He should not be 
merely " one lesson ahead " of his pupils. Really it 
is necessary to grasp the whole of a subject before 
we can properly set forth its elements. A very 
thorough normal training is indispensable to those 
who would give moral instruction to the young. 

The duties of cleanliness and temperance fall 
under the same head as the above. In speaking of 
cleanliness, there are three motives — the egoistic, 
the aesthetic, and the moral — to which we may appeal. 
Be scrupulously clean for the sake of health, be 
clean lest you become an object of disgust to others, 
be clean in order to retain your self-respect. Special 
emphasis should be laid on secret cleanliness. In- 
dolent children are sometimes neat in externals, but 
shockingly careless in what is concealed from view. 



192 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

The motive of self-respect shows itself particularly 
in secret cleanliness. 

The duty of temperance is supported by the same 
three motives. Intemperance undermines health, 
the glutton or the drunkard awakens disgust, intem- 
perance destroys self-respect. To strengthen the 
repugnance of the pupils against intemperance in 
eating, contrast the w^ay in which wild beasts eat wuth 
that in which human beings partake of their food. 
The beast is absorbed in the gratification of its 
appetite, eats without the use of implements, eats un- 
socially. The human way of eating is in each par- 
ticular the opposite. Show especially that the act of 
eating is si^iritualized by being made subservient to 
friendly intercourse and to the strengthening of the 
ties of domestic affection. The family table becomes 
the family altar. Call attention also to the effects 
of drunkenness ; point out the injuries which the 
drunkard inflicts on wife and children by his neg- 
lect to provide for them, by the outbursts of violence 
to which he is subject under the influence of strong 
drink ; describe his physical, mental, and moral deg- 
radation ; lay stress on the fact that liquor deprives 
him of the use of his reason. "With respect to tem- 
perance in food, there are one or two points to be 
noted. I say to my pupils if you are particularly 
fond of a certain dish, sweetmeats, for instance, 
make it a rule to partake less of that than if you 
were not so fond of it. This is good practice in self- 
restraint. I make out as strong a case as possible 
against the indulgence of the candy habit. Young 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. I93 

people are not, as a rule, tempted to indulge in 
strong drink ; but tliey are tempted to waste their 
money and injure their health by an excessive con- 
sumption of sweets. It is well to apply the lesson 
of temperance to the things in which they are 
tempted. For the teacher the following note may 
be added : Of the senses, some, like that of taste, 
are more nearly allied to the physical part of us; 
others, like sight and hearing, to our rational nature. 
This antithesis of the senses may be used in the in- 
terest of temperance. Appeal to the higher senses 
in order to subdue the lower. A band of kinder- 
garten children, having been invited on a picnic, 
were given the choice between a second plate of 
ice cream, for which many of them were clamor- 
ing, and a bunch of flowers for each. Most of 
them were sufficiently interested in flowers to pre- 
fer the latter. In the case of young children, the 
force of the physical appetite may also be weakened 
by appealing to their affection. During the later 
stage of adolescence, when the dangers which arise 
from the awakening life of the senses become great 
and imminent, the attention should be directed to 
high intellectual aims, the social feelings should be 
cultivated, and a taste for the pleasures of the senses 
of sight and hearing — namely, the pleasures of 
music, painting, sculpture, etc. — should be carefully 
developed. Artistic, intellectual, and social motives 
should be brought into play jointly to meet the one 

great peril of this period of life. 

13 \i 



194 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

Duties which relate to the Feelings. 

Under this head let me speak first of fear. 
There is a distinction to be drawn between physical 
and moral cowardice. Physical cowardice is a matter 
of temperament or organization. Perhaps it can 
hardly ever be entirely overcome, but the exliibition 
of it can be prevented by moral courage. Moral 
cowardice, on the other hand, is a fault of char- 
acter. In attempting to formulate the rule of 
conduct, appeal as before to the egoistic motive, 
then to the social — i. e., the desire for the good 
opinion of others — and lastly to the moral motive, 
properly speaking. Fear paralyzes ; it fascinates 
its victim like the fabled basilisk. Nothing is 
more common than a sense of helpless immobility 
under the influence of fear. There is a way 
of escape. You might run or leap for your life, 
but you can not stir a limb. What you need to 
do is to turn away your attention by a powerful 
effort of the will from the object which excites fear. 
So long as that object is before you the mind can 
not act ; the mind is practically absent. What you 
need is presence of mind. Let the teacher adduce 
some of the many striking instances in which men 
in apparently desperate straits have been saved by 
presence of mind. The rule thus far would read : 
Be brave and suppress fear, because by so doing 
you may escape out of danger. In the next place, 
by so doing you will escape the reproaches of your 
fellow-men, for cowardice is universally condemned 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. 195 

as shameful. Cite from Spartan history examples 
showing in the strongest light the feeling of scorn 
and contempt for the coward. There are, however, 
cases where death is certain, and where there is no 
support like that of public opinion to sustain 
courage. What should he the rule of duty in such 
cases? Take the case of a person who has been 
shipwrecked. He swims the sea alone, he is still 
clinging to a spar, but realizes that in a few minutes 
he must let go, his strength being well-nigh spent. 
What should be his attitude of mind in that su- 
preme moment. The forces of nature are about to 
overwhelm him. What motive can there be strong 
enough to support bravery in that moment ? The 
rule of duty for him would be : Be brave, because 
as a human being you are superior to the forces of 
nature, because there is something in you — your 
moral self — over which the forces of nature have no 
power, because what happens to you in your private 
character is not important, but it is important that 
you assert the dignity of humanity to the last 
breath. 

After having discussed courage, define fortitude. 
Point out the importance of strength of will. Con- 
trast the strong will with the feeble, with the way- 
ward, the irresolute, and also the obstinate will, for 
obstinacy is often the sign of weakness rather than 
of strength. See, for useful hints on this subject. 
Bain's The Emotions and the Will. 

What happens to thy little self is not important. 
This is the leading thought which shall also guide 



196 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

us in the discussion of Anger. In entering on the 
subject of anger begin by describing the effects of it. 
Quote the passage from Seneca's treatise on anger, 
showing how it disfigures tlie countenance. Point 
out that anger provokes anger in return, and is 
therefore contrary to self-interest. Call to your aid 
the social motive by showing that under the in- 
fluence of anger we often overshoot the mark and 
inflict injuries on others which we had not intended. 
Finally, show that indulgence in anger is immoral. 
In what sense is it immoral ? Anger is an emotional 
reaction against injury. When a child hurts its foot 
against a stone, it is often so unreasonably angry at 
the stone as to strike it. When an adult person re- 
ceives a blow, his first impulse is to return it. This 
desire to return injury for injury is one of the charac- 
teristic marks of anger. Another mark is that anger 
is proportional to the injury received, and not to the 
fault implied. Every one knows that a slight fault in 
another may occasion a great injury to ourselves, 
while, on the other hand, a serious fault may only 
cause us a slight inconvenience. The angry person 
measures his resentment by the injury, and not by 
the fault. Anger is selfish. It is fed and pampered 
by the delusion that our pleasures and pains are of 
chief importance. Contrast wath anger the moral 
feeling of indignation. Anger is directed against 
the injury received, indignation solely against the 
wrong done. The immoral feeling prompts us to 
hate wrong because it has been inflicted on us. 
The moral feeling prompts us to hate wrong be- 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. 197 

cause it is wrong. !Now, to the extent that we 
sincerely hate wrong we shall be stirred up to dimin- 
ish its power over others as well as over ourselves ; 
we shall, for instance, be moved to save the evil 
doer who has just injured us from the tyranny of 
his evil nature ; we shall aspire to become the moral 
physicians of those who have hurt us. And pre- 
cisely because they have hurt us, they have a unique 
claim on us. We who know better than others the 
extent of their disease are called upon more than 
others to labor with a view to their cure. In this 
connection the rule of returning good for evil should 
be explained. This rule does not apply alike in all 
cases, though the spirit of it should always inspire 
our actions. If a pickpocket should steal our purse, 
it would be folly to hand him a check for twice the 
amount he has just stolen. If a hardened criminal 
should draw his knife and wound us in the back, it 
would be absurd to request him kindly to stab us in 
the breast also. We should in this case not be curing 
him, but simply confirming him in his evil doing. 
The rule is : Try to free the sinner from the power 
of sin. In some cases this is best accomplished by 
holding his hand, as it were, and preventing him 
from carrying out the intended wrong. In other 
cases by depriving him of his liberty for a season, 
subjecting him to wholesome discipline, and teaching 
him habits of industry. Only in the case of those 
who have already attained a higher moral plane, and 
whose conscience is sensitive, does the rule of re- 
turning good for evil apply literally. If a brother 



198 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

has acted in an unbrotherly way toward you, do you 
on tlie next occasion act wholly in a brotherly way 
toward him. You will thereby show him how he 
ought to have acted and awaken the better nature in 
him. 

Certain practical rules for the control of anger 
may be given to the pupil. Suppress the signs of 
anger ; you will thereby diminish its force. Try to 
gain time : " When you are angry, count ten before 
you speak ; when you are very angry, count a hun- 
dred." Having gained time, examine rigorously 
into your own conduct. Ask yourself whether you 
have not been partly to blame. If you find that you 
have, then, instead of venting your wrath on your 
enemy, try rather to correct the fault which has pro- 
voked hostility. But if, after honest self-scrutiny, 
you are able to acquit yourself, then you can all the 
more readily act the part of the moral physician, 
for it is the innocent who find it easiest to for- 
give. It is also useful to cite examples of persons 
who, like Socrates, have exhibited great self-control 
in moments of anger ; and to quote proverbs treat- 
ing of anger, to explain these proverbs and to cause 
them to be committed to memory. I advise, indeed, 
that proverbs be used in connection with all the 
moral lessons. Of the manner in which they are to 
be used I shall speak later on. 

The last of the present group of duties which we 
shall discuss relates to the feelings of vanity, pride, 
humility. Vanity is a feeling of self-complacency 
based on external advantages. A person is vain of 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. I99 

his dress or of liis real or supposed personal charms. 
The peacock is the type of vanity. Thoiigh the 
admiration of others ministers to vanity, yet it is 
possible to be vain by one's self — before a mir- 
ror, for instance. The feeling of pride, on the 
other hand, depends upon a comparison between 
self and others. Pride implies a sense of one's own 
superiority and of the inferiority of others. Both 
feelings are anti-moral. They spring, like moral 
cowardice and anger, from the false belief that this 
little self of ours is of very great importance. There 
is no such thing as proper pride or honest pride. 
The word pride used in this connection is a mis- 
nomer. Yanity is spurious self-esteem based on 
external advantages. Pride is spurious self-esteem 
based on comparison with others. Genuine self- 
esteem is based on the consciousness of a distinction 
which we share with all humanity — namely, the 
capacity and the duty of rational development. 
This genuine self-esteem has two aspects — the one 
positive, the other negative. The positive aspect is 
called dignity, the negative humility. True dignity 
and true humility always go together. The sense 
of dignity arises within us when we remember the 
aims to which as human beings we are pledged; 
the sense of humility can not fail to arise when we 
consider how infinitely in practice we all fall below 
those aims. Thus while pride depends on a com- 
parison of ourselves with others, the genuinely 
moral feeling is excited when we consider our rela- 
tion to the common ends of mankind. On the one 



200 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

hand, we are indeed privileged to pursue those ends, 
and are thereby exalted above all created things and 
above the whole of the natural world with all its 
stars and suns. Upon this consideration is founded 
the sense of dignity. On the other hand, we can 
not but own how great is the distance which sepa- 
rates even the best of us from the goal, and this 
gives rise to a deep sense of humility. The rule of 
conduct which we are considering is a rule of proper 
self-estimation. Estimate thy worth not by exter- 
nal advantages nor by thy pre-eminence above others, 
but by the degree of energy with which thou pnr- 
suest the moral aims. To mark off the distinction 
between vanity and pride on the one hand and 
dignity on the other, the teacher may contrast in 
detail the lives of Alcibiades and Socrates. 

In connection with the discussion of anger and of 
pride, define such terms as hate, envy, malice. Hatred 
is anger become chronic. Or we may also say the 
state of mind which leads to passionate paroxysms in 
the case of anger is called hate when it has turned 
into a settled inward disposition. In other re- 
spects the characteristic marks of both are the same. 
Envy is the obverse of pride. Pride is based on 
real or fancied superiority to others. Envy is due 
to real or fancied inferiority. Pride is the vice of 
the strong, envy of the weak. Malice is pleasure in 
the loss of others irrespective of our gain. 

I have observed on a previous occasion that the 
feelings considered by themselves have no moral 
value. Nevertheless, we have now repeatedly spoken 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO PHYSICAL LIFE. 201 

of moral feelings. The apparent contradiction dis- 
appears if we remember that all feelings of the 
higher order presuppose, and are the echo of com- 
plex systems of ideas. The moral feelings are those 
in which moral ideas have their resonance ; and 
those feelings are valuable in virtue of the ideas 
which they reflect. The feeling of moral courage 
depends on the idea that the injuries we receive at 
the hands of fortune are not important, but that it 
is important for us to do credit to our rational 
nature. The feehng of moral indignation depends 
on the idea that the injuries we receive from our 
fellow-men are not important, but that it is impor- 
tant that the right be done and the wrong abated. 
The feelings of moral dignity and humility com- 
bined depend on the idea that it does not signify 
whether the shadow we cast in the world of men be 
long or short, but only that we live in the light of 
the moral aims. 



XIII. 

DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 

Filial Duties. 

We began our course of moral instruction witli 
tlie self-regarding duties, and assigned the second 
place to the duties which relate to others. There is 
an additional reason besides the one already given 
for keeping to this order. 

If we were to begin with the commandments 
or prohibitions which relate to others — e. g., the 
sixth, eighth, and ninth commandments of the Deca- 
logue — the pupil might easily get the impression 
that these things are forbidden solely because they 
involve injuries to others, but that in cases where 
the injury is inconsiderable, or not apparent, the 
transgression of moral commandments is more or 
less excusable. There are many persons who seem 
unable to understand that it is really sinful to de- 
fraud the custom-house or to neglect paying one's 
fare in a horse-car. And why ? Because the in- 
jury inflicted seems so insignificant. Now, it is 
of the utmost consequence to impress upon the 
pupil that every action which involves a violation 
of duty to others at the same time produces a change 
in the moral quality of the agent, that he suffers as 
well as the one whom he wrongs. The subjective 

(202^ 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 203 

and objective sides of transgression can not in point 
of principle and ought not in actual consciousness 
to be separated. If, therefore, we begin by en- 
forcing such duties as temperance the pupil will 
at once feel that the violation of the law changes 
his inward condition, degrades him in his own eyes, 
lowers him in the scale of being. The true stand- 
point from which all moral transgression should be 
regarded will thus be gained at the outset, and it 
will be comparatively easy to maintain the same 
point of view when we come to speak of the social 
duties. 

To start discussion on the subject of the filial 
duties, relate the story of ^neas carrying his aged 
father, Anchises, out of burning Troy ; also the story 
of Cleobis and Bito (Herodotus, i, 31). Recall the 
devotion of Telemachus to Ulysses. Tell the story 
of Lear and his daughters, contrasting the conduct 
of Regan and Goneril with that of Cordelia. An 
excellent story to tell, especially to young children, 
is that of Dama. ^neas and Telemachus illustrate 
the filial spirit as expressed in services rendered to 
parents, but opportunity to be of real service to par- 
ents is not often offered to the very young. The story 
of Dama exhibits the filial spirit as displayed in acts 
of delicacy and consideration, and such acts are within 
the power of all children. The story is located in Pal- 
estine, and is supposed to have occurred at the time 
when the temple at Jerusalem was still standing. 
Dama was a dealer in jewels, noted for possessing 
the rarest and richest collection anywhere to be 



204 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

found. It happened that it became necessary to 
replace a number of the precious stones on the 
breastplate of the high priest, and a deputation was 
sent from Jerusalem to wait on Dama and to select 
from his stock what was needed. Dama received 
his distinguished visitors with becoming courtesy, 
and on learning their mission spread out before 
them a large number of beautiful stones. But none 
of these were satisfactory. The stones must needs 
be of extraordinary size and brilliancy. None but 
such might be used. When Dama was informed 
of this he reflected a moment, then said that in a 
room occupied by his old father there was a cabinet 
in which he kept his most precious gems, and that 
among them he was sure he could find what his 
visitors wanted. He bade them delay a few mo- 
ments, while he made the necessary search. But 
presently he returned without the jewels. lie ex- 
pressed the greatest regret, but declared that it was 
impossible to oblige them. They were astonished, and, 
believing it to be a mere trader's trick, offered him 
an immense price for the stones. He answered that 
he was extremely sorry to miss so profitable a trans- 
action, but that it was indeed beyond his power to 
oblige them now — if they would return in an hour 
or two he could probably suit them. They declared 
that their business admitted of no delay ; that the 
breastplate must be repaired at once, so that the 
priest might not be prevented from discharging his 
office. And so he allowed them to depart. It a])pears 
that when Dama opened the door of the room he 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 205 

saw his old father asleep on the couch. He tried to 
enter noiselessly, biit the door creaked on its hinges, 
and the old man started in his sleep. Dama checked 
himself, and turned back. He said, " I will forego 
the gain which they oifer me, but I will not disturb 
the slumbers of my father." The sleep of the old 
father was sacred to Dama. Children are often 
thoughtless in breaking noisily into a room where 
father or mother is resting. Such a story tends 
to instill the lesson of consideration and of rever- 
ence. 

Reverence is the key-note of filial duty. You 
will remember that Goethe, in Wilhelm Meister, in 
those chapters in which he sketches his pedagogical 
ideal, bases the entire religious and moral education 
of the young on a threefold reverence. He applies 
the following symbolism : The pupils of the ideal 
pedagogical institution are required to take, on dif- 
ferent occasions, three different attitudes. Now they 
fold their arms on their breast, and look with open 
countenance upward ; again they fold their arms 
on their backs, and their bright glances are directed 
toward the earth ; and again they stand in a row, 
and their faces are turned to the right, each one 
looking at his neighbor. These three attitudes are 
intended to symbolize reverence toward what is above 
us, toward what is beneath us, and toward our equals. 
These three originate and culminate in the true self- 
reverence. In speaking of filial duty, we are con- 
cerned with reverence toward what is above us. 
The parent is the physical, mental, and moral su- 



206 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

perior of tlie child. It is his duty to assist the 
child's physical, mental, and moral growth ; to lift 
it by degrees out of its position of inferiority, so 
that it may attain the fullness of its powers, and help 
to carry on the mission of mankind when the older 
generation shall have retired from the scene. The 
duty of the superior toward the inferior is to help 
him to rise above the plane of inferiority. The re- 
ceptive and appreciative attitude of one who is thus 
helped is called reverence. But we must approach 
the nature of parental duty more closely, and the 
following reflections may put us in the way : No 
man can attain the intellectual aims of life with- 
out assistance. A scientist inhabiting a desert island 
and limited to his own mental resources could make 
little headway. The scientist of to-day utilizes the 
accumulated labors of all the generations of scien- 
tists that have preceded him, and depends for the 
value of his results on the co-operation and the sift- 
ing criticism of his contemporaries. And as no one 
can get much knowledge without the help of others, 
so no one is justified in seeking knowledge for his 
own private pleasure, or in seeking the kind of 
knowledge that happens to pique his vanity. For 
instance, it is a violation of intellectual duty to spend 
one's time in acquiring out-of-the way erudition 
which is useful only for display. The pursuit of 
knowledge is a public not a private end. Every 
scholar and man of science is bound to enlarge as 
far as he can the common stock of truth, to add to 
the scientific possessions of the human race. But 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 207 

ill order to do this he must question himself closely, 
that he may discover in what direction his special 
talent lies, and may apply himself sedulously to the 
cultivation of that. For it is by specializing his efforts 
that he can best serve the general interests of truth. 
The same holds good with respect to the pursuit of 
social ends — e. g., the correction of social abuses and 
the promotion of social justice. The reformer of 
to-day stands on the shoulders of all the reformers 
of the past, and would have little prospect of suc- 
cess in any efforts he may make without the co- 
operation and criticism of numerous co-workers. 
Nor, again, is it right for him to take up any and 
every project of reform that may happen to strike 
his fancy. He ought rather to consider what par- 
ticular measures under existing circumstances are 
most likely to advance the cause of progress, and in 
what capacity he is specially fitted to promote such 
measures. Justice and truth are public, not private 
ends. The highest aim of life for each one is to 
offer that contribution which he, as an individual^ 
is peculiarly fitted to make toward the attainment 
of the public ends of mankind. The individual 
when living only for himself, absorbed in his pri- 
vate pleasures and pains, is a creature of little worth ; 
and his existence is of little more account in the 
scheme of things than that of the summer insects, 
who have their day and perish. But the individual 
become the organ of humanity acquires a lasting 
worth, and his individuality possesses an inviolable 
sanctity. The sacredness of individuality in the 



208 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

sense just indicated is a leading idea of ethics — per- 
haps it would not be too much to saj, the leading 
idea. 

And now we can state more exactly the nature 
of parental duty. It is the duty of the parent, 
remembering that he is the guardian of the perma- 
nent welfare of his child, to respect, to protect, to 
develop its individuality — above all, to discover its 
individual bent ; for that is often latent, and requires 
to be persistently searched out. It is the duty and 
the privilege of the parent to put the child, as it 
were, in possession of its own soul. 

And upon this relationship filial reverence is 
founded, and from it the principal filial duties may 
be deduced. Because the child does not know what 
is best for it, in view rf its destiny, as described 
above, it is bound to obey. Obedience is th*e first 
of the filial duties. Secondly, the child is bound to 
show gratitude for the benefits received at the 
hands of its parents. The teacher should discuss 
with his pupils the principal benefits conferred by 
parents. The parents supply the child with food, 
shelter, and raiment ; they nurse it in sickness, often 
sacrificing sleep, comfort, and liealth for its sake. 
They toil in order that it may want nothing ; they 
give it, in their fond afiPection, the sweet seasoning 
of all their other gifts. It is well to brin^ these 
facts distinctly before the pupil's mind. The eacher 
can do it with a better grace than the parent him- 
self. The teacher can strengthen and deepen the 
home feeling, and it is his office to do so. The pupil 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 209 

should go home from his moral lesson in school and 
look upon his parents with a new realization of all 
that he owes them, with a new and deeper tenderness. 
But the duty of gratitude should be based, above all, 
upon the greatest gift which the child obtains from 
his parents, the help which it receives toward attain- 
ing the moral aim of its existence, 

I do not include the commandment " Love thy 
parents " among the rules of filial duty, for I do not 
think that love can be commanded. 'Love follows of 
itself if the right attitude of reverence, obedience, 
gratitude be observed. Love is the sense of union 
with another. And the peculiarity of filial love, 
whereby it is distinguished from other kinds of love, 
is that it springs from union with persons on whom 
we utterly depend, with mc^ral superiors, to whom 
we owe the fostering of our spiritual as well as of our 
physical existence. 

But how shall the sentiment of filial gratitude 
express itself? Gratitude is usually displayed by 
a return of the kindness received. But the kind- 
ness which we receive from parents is such that we 
can never repay it. It is of the nature of a debt 
which we can never hope fully to cancel. We can 
do this much — when our parents grow old, we can 
care for them, and smooth the last steps that lead to 
the grave;! , And when we ourselves have grown to 
manhooji and womanhood, and have in turn become 
parents, we can bestow upon our own offspring the 
same studious and intelligent care which our parents, 

according to the light they had, bestowed on us, and 
14 



210 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

thus ideally repay them by doing for others what 
they did for us. But this is a point which concerns 
only adults. As for young children, they can show 
their gratitude in part by slight services, delicacies 
of behavior, the chief value of which consists in the 
sentiment that inspires them, but principally by a 
willing acceptance of parental guidance, and by 
earnest efforts in the direction of their own intel- 
lectual and moral improvement. There is no love 
so unselfish as parental love. There is nothing 
which true parents have more at heart than the 
highest welfare of their children. There is no way 
in which a child can please father and mother bet- 
ter than by doing that which is for its own highest 
good. The child's progress in knowledge and in 
moral excellence are to every parent the most ac- 
ceptable tokens of filial gratitude. And this leads me 
to an important point, to which reference has already 
been made. It has been stated that each period of 
life has its distinct set of duties ; furthermore, that 
in each period there is one paramount duty, around 
which the others may be grouped ; and, lastly, that at 
each successive stage it is important to reach back- 
ward and to bring the ethical system of the preced- 
ing period into harmony with the new system. Of 
this last point we are now in a position to give a 
simple illustration. The paramount duty of the 
school period is to acquire knowledge; the para- 
mount duty of the previous period is to reverence 
parents. But, as has just been shown, reverence 
toward parents at this stage is best exhibited by 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 211 

conscientious study, and thus the two systems are 
merged into one.* 

The Feateenal Duties. 

Thus much concerning the filial relations. "We 
pass on to speak of the fraternal duties ; the du- 
ties of brothers to brothers and sisters to sisters ; 
of brothers to sisters and conversely; of older to 
younger brothers and sisters and conversely. The 
fraternal duties are founded upon the respect which 
equals owe to equals. The brotherly relation is of 
immense pedagogic value, inasmuch as it educates 
us for the fulfillment later on of our duties toward 
all equals, be they kinsmen or not. As between 
brothers, the respect of each for the rights of the 
other is made comparatively easy by natural incli- 
nation. The tie of blood, close and constant asso- 
ciation in the same house, common experience of 
domestic pleasures and sorrows — all this tends to 
link the hearts of the brothers together, and thus the 
first lessons in one of the hardest duties are given 
by Love, the gentlest of school-masters. But the 
word equality must not be misconceived. Equal- 
ity is not to be taken in its mathematical sense. 
One brother is gifted and may eventually rise to 
wealth and fame, another is Nature's step-child ; 

* It may also be pointed out to the pupil that a part of the 
task of intellectual and moral training, which originally belongs 
entirely to the parents, has by them been intrusted to the teach- 
ers, and that something of the reverence which belongs to the 
former is now due to the latter. 



212 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

one sister is beautiful, anotlier the opposite. If tlie 
idea of equality be pressed to a literal meaning, it is 
Bure to give rise to ugly feelings in the hearts of 
the less fortunate. How, then, shall we define 
equality in the moral sense ? A superior, as we 
have seen, renders services which the inferior can 
not adequately return. Equals are those who are 
so far on the same level as to be capable of render- 
ing mutual services, alike in importance, though not 
necessarily the same in kind. Equals are correlative 
to one another. The services of each are comple- 
mentary to those of the other. The idea of mutual 
service, therefore, is characteristic of the relation of 
brothers, and the rule of duty may be formulated 
simply. Serve one another. From this follow all 
the minor commands and prohibitions which are 
usually impressed upon children,* and also the far 
loftier counsels which apply only to adults. 

It will be perceived that the rule of mutual serv- 
ice, when carried to its highest applications, presup- 
poses the principle of individual differentiation, to 
which we have already attached so much weight. 
This principle is fundamental to fraternal as well as 
to paternal and filial duty. For precisely to the ex- 
tent that brothers are distinctly individualized can 
they supplement each other and correlate their mutual 

* Do not quarrel over your respective rights ; rather be more 
eager to secure the rights of your brother than your own. Do 
not triumph in your brother's disgrace or taunt him with his 
failings, but rather seek to build up his self-respect. Help one 
another in your tasks, etc. 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 213 

services. One can not indeed overlook the patent fact 
that brothers who are unlike in nature frequently 
repel each other, and that in such cases the very 
closeness of the relation often becomes a source of 
extreme irritation, and even of positive agony. But, 
on the other hand, there is no surer sign of moral 
I'ipeness than the ability to enter into, to under- 
stand, to aj^preciate a nature totally unlike one's 
own, and thus to some extent to appropriate its ex- 
cellences. The very fact, therefore, that we at first 
feel ourselves repelled should be taken as a hint that 
this natural repulsion is to be overcome. For every 
type of character needs its opposite to correct it. 
The idealist, for instance, needs the realist, if he 
would keep his balance. And our uncongenial 
brothers, precisely because they are at first uncon- 
genial, if we will but remember that they are, after 
all, our brothers, and that it is our duty to come into 
harmonious relations with them, can best help us to 
this fine self-conquest, this true enrichment and en- 
largement of our moral being. 

A word may be added as a caution to parents 
and teachers. The way to create brotherly feeling 
among the young is to treat them impartially, to 
love them with an equal love. Those who love and 
are beloved by the same person are strongly in- 
duced to love one another. In the next place, when 
disputes arise, as is perhaps unavoidable, the parent 
or teacher should, as a rule, enter patiently into the 
cause and not cut off inquiry because the whole 
matter seems trivial. The subject matter of the 



214 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

dispute may be insignificant enongli, but the satis- 
faction of the sense of justice of the young is of 
the greatest significance. Wlien the sense of justice 
is outraged, be the cause never so trivial, a feeling of 
distrust against the parent is generated, and of in- 
cijDient hatred against the brother who may have 
provoked the unjust decision. 

I have yet to speak of the duties of older to 
younger brothers and sisters. If it is difticult to 
serve two masters, it is hardly pleasant to be asked 
to serve half a dozen. The youngest children 
in a large family are often placed in this posi- 
tion. There is, in the first place, the authority of 
the parents, which must be respected ; then, in ad- 
dition, each of the grown-up sons and daughters is 
apt to try to exercise a little authority on his or her 
own account. The younger ones naturally resent 
this petty despotism, and disobedience and angry 
recriminations are the unpleasant consequences. It 
is often necessary that elder sons and daughters 
should have partial charge of the younger. They 
can in all cases make their authority acceptable by 
representing it as delegated, by having it understood 
that they regard themselves merely as substitutes in 
the parents' place. There must be unity of influ- 
ence in the home, or else the moral development of 
the young will be sadly interfered with. There 
must be only a single center of authority, repre- 
sented by the parents, and all minor exercise of au- 
thority should be referred back to that center. 
" Father and mother wish me to help you " ; " Fa- 



DUTIES WlllCn RELATE TO OTHERS. 215 

tlier and mother will be jDleased if you do so and so ; 
let me try to show yon how" — if the method of 
management implied in such words as these be 
adopted, the younger children will look upon the 
elder as their friends and be glad to accept advice 
and direction. 

Lastly, a word about the relation between broth- 
ers and sisters, and conversely. This relationship is 
qualified by the difference of sex. A certain chivalry 
characterizes the attitude of the brother toward the 
sister, a certain motherliness that of the sister to- 
ward the brother. The relation may be and often 
is a very beautiful one. The peculiar moral re- 
sponsibility connected with it is that the sister is 
usually the first woman whom the brother knows at 
all intimately and as an equal, and that his notions 
of womanhood are largely influenced by the traits 
which he sees in her, while the brother is usually the 
first man whom the sister knows as a companion, and 
her ideas of men are colored by what she sees in 
him. 

To illustrate the fraternal relation I have been 
in the habit of recalling the stories from the Old 
Testament which bear npon this subject. I have 
also given an account of the life of the brothers 
Jacob and William Grimm. There was only a 
year's difference between them. Jacob Grimm, 
in the eulogy on William, which he delivered be- 
fore the Berlin Academy in the year 1860, says : 
" During the slowly creeping years of our school 
life we slept in the same bed and occupied the 



216 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

same room. There we sat at one and the same 
table studying our lessons. Later on there were two 
tables and two beds in the same room ; and later 
still, during the entire period of our riper man- 
hood, we still continued to occupy two adjoining 
rooms, always under the same roof." All their 
property, and even their books, they held in com- 
mon ; what belonged to the one belonged to the 
other. They visited the university together in the 
same year ; they both took up, in deference to their 
mother's wish, the same study, that of the law, 
which they alike hated, and then they turned in 
common to the study of philology, in which both 
delighted and both achieved such great distinction. 
They published their first important works in the 
same year ; and as they slept together in the same 
bed when they were children, so now they sleep 
side by side in the grave, 

I refer to the story of Lear and his daughters 
to show that the common love for the parents is 
necessary to sustain the love of brothers and sisters 
toward one another. Lear had estranged the af- 
fection of Goneril and Regan through his partiality 
for Cordelia. The two women, who had no love 
for their father, hated each other ; and Goneril, 
who was the first to cast him out, poisoned her 
sister. 

To illustrate the relations of brothers to sisters, 
I give an account of the beautiful lives of Charles 
and Mary Lamb. To show the redeeming power of 
womanhood as represented in a sister, I explain to 



DUTIES WHICH RELATE TO OTHERS. 217 

older pupils the story which underlies Goethe's 
drama of Iphigenia. Orestes is sick ; and what is 
his malady? His soul has been poisoned by re- 
morse. Believing himself to be the executive arm 
of justice, he committed a great crime, and now he 
is torn by the pangs of conscience, and his mind is 
forever dwelling on that scene in which he was a 
fatal actor. And how does Iphigenia heal him? 
She heals him by the clear truthfulness of her 
nature, which the play is designed to bring out. 
With the light of genuine womanhood which ema- 
nates from her she illuminates anew his darkened 
path. By the force of the good which he learns to 
recognize in her he is led to a new trust in the re- 
deeming power of the good in himself, and thus to 
start out afresh in a life of courage, hope, and active 
effort. The teacher should analyze and cause to be 
committed to memory the various beautiful prov- 
erbs which bear upon the subject of fraternal duty. 



XIV. 
DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 

JUSTICE AND CHARITY. 

Justice. — The subject of justice is a difficult 
one to treat. Justice in the legal sense is to be dis- 
tinguished from justice in the moral sense. We are 
concerned only with the latter. How much of it 
can we hope to include in such a course of instruc- 
tion as this ? We can, I think, explain the essential 
principle and give a few of its most important ap- 
plications. What is this principle 'i Human society 
is an organism, and the perfection of it depends 
upon the degree to which the parts related are differ- 
entiated. Unity of organization is the end, differen- 
tiation is the means. The serving of universal ends 
is the aim, the emphasizing of individuality the means. 
The principle which underlies the laws of justice I 
take to be respect for individuality of others. And 
this may be expressed in the rule, Respect the indi- 
viduality of every human being. It might, indeed, 
appear at iirst sight as if justice had to do only with 
those points in which all men are alike, and took no 
notice of the differences that subsist between them. 
Thus justice enjoins respect for the life of others ; 
and in regard to this all men are exactly on a par, all 
men are equally entitled to live. But justice also 

(218) 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 219 

commands iis to respect the convictions of others, 
however different they may be from onr own. And 
it is but a finer sense of justice which keeps us from 
intruding on the privacy of others, which leads us to 
show a proper consideration for the ways and idiosyn- 
crasies of others, and in general to refrain from en- 
croaching on the personality of others. The prin- 
ciple of justice may also be expressed in the rule, 
Do not interfere with the individual development 
of any one. 

Applications of the Principle of Justice. — 
1. Do not kill. By taking away the life of a human 
being we should of course cut off all chance of that 
person's further development. This requires no com- 
ment. But certain casuistical questions arise in con- 
nection with this command. Is it right to kill an- 
other in self-defense ? The difficulty involved might 
be put in this way : A burglar breaks into your house 
by night and threatens to kill you. You have a 
weapon at hand and can save yourself by killing 
him. Now it is evident that one of two lives must 
be taken. But would it not be more moral on your 
part to say : I, at least, will not break the command- 
ment. I would rather be killed than kill ? This ques- 
tion serves to show to what absurdities a purely for- 
mal principle in ethics can lead, as we have already 
seen in the discussion of truthfulness. The problem 
of the duel and that of the taking of the life of 
others in war also belong under this head, but will 
be reserved for the advanced course. 

2. Besj>eGt the personal liberty of others. Slavery, 



220 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

under whatever form, is an outrage on justice. The 
slave is degraded to be the mere instrument of his 
master's profit or pleasure. Let the teacher point 
out in what particulars the slave is wronged, and 
show the evil effects of the institution of slavery on 
the character of the master as well as of the slave. 
Question — Is it right to speak of wage-slavery, for 
instance, in cases where the hours of labor are so 
prolonged as to leave no time for higher interests, 
or where the relations of the laborer to his employer 
are such as to impair his moral independence ? 

3. Respect the property of others. Unless we 
are careful we may at this point commit a grave 
wrong. Upon what moral considerations shall the 
right of property be based ? The school, especially 
the moral lessons which are imparted in it, should 
certainly not be placed in the service of vested in- 
terests. On the other hand, the school should not 
fill the pupils' minds with economic theories, which 
they are incapable of understanding, and of which 
the truth, the justice, the feasibility are still hotly 
disputed. We are therefore taking a very respon- 
sible step in introducing the idea of property at all 
into our moral lessons. And yet it is too great and 
important to be ignored. Some writers have ad- 
vanced the theory that the right in question rests 
on labor, and they regard it as a self-evident proposi- 
tion, one which, therefore, might safely be taught to 
the young, that every person is entitled to the prod- 
ucts of his labor. Jules Simon says (see Paul Janet, 
Elements of Morals, English translation, p. Q%): 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 221 

" This earth was worth nothing and produced noth- 
ing. I dug the soil, I brought from a distance fer- 
tilizing earth ; it is now fertile. This fertility is my 
work ; by fertilizing it, I made it mine." American 
writers have eloquent passages to the same efEect. 
But this proposition certainly does not appear to me 
self-evident, nor even true. Chiefly for the reason 
that " my labor " and " my skill " are not original, but 
derivative factors in production. They are very 
largely the result of the labor and the skill of genera- 
tions that have preceded me, that have bnilt up in me 
this brain, this skill, this power of application. The 
products of my labor would indeed belong to me if 
my labor were really mine, if it were not to an in- 
calculable extent the consequent of social antece- 
dents, in regard to which I can not claim the least 
merit. The attempt to found the rewards of labor 
upon the merit of the laborer seems to me a per- 
fectly hopeless one. 

Let me add that it is one thing to say that he 
who will not work shall not eat, and a very different 
thing to say that he who works shall enjoy what he 
has produced. The former statement merely signi- 
fies that he who will not contribute his share toward 
sustaining and improving human society is not en- 
titled to any part in the advantages of the social order, 
though the charity of his fellow-men may grant him, 
under certain conditions and in the hope of chang- 
ing his disposition, what he is not entitled to as of 
right. But the question what the share of the la- 
borer ought to be is one that can not be settled in 



222 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

the rough-and-readj manner above suggested, and 
the considerations involved are, in truth, far too 
numerous and complex to be introduced at this 
stage. The whole question will be reopened later on. 
For the present it must suffice to state certain purely 
moral considerations on which the right of prop- 
erty may be made to rest. The following are the 
ideas which I should seek to develop : Property is 
justified by its uses. Its uses are to support the ex- 
istence and promote the mental and moral growth 
of man. The phj^sical life itself depends on prop- 
erty. Even in a communistic state the food any 
one eats must be his property in the sense that 
every one else is debarred from using it. The moral 
life of men depends on property. The moral life is 
rooted in the institution of the family, and the fam- 
ily could not exist without a separate domicile of its 
own and the means of providing for its dependent 
members. The independence and the growth of 
the intellect depend on property. In short, prop- 
erty is an indispensable adjunct of ^personality. 
This I take to be its moral basis. What I here in- 
dicate, however, is an ideal right which the existing 
state of society by no means reflects. By what 
methods we may best approach this ideal, whether 
by maintaining and improving the system of private 
property in land or by state ownership, whether by 
capitalistic or socialistic production, etc., are ques- 
tions of means, not of ends, and raise problems in 
social science with which here we have not to deal. 
Question — If the present social arrangements 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 223 

are not morally satisfactory, if e. g., certain per- 
sons possess property to M^hich on moral grounds 
they are not entitled, should not the commandment 
against stealing be suspended so far as they are con- 
cerned ? The present system of rights, imperfect as 
it is, is the result of social evolution, and denotes the 
high-water mark of the average ethical consciousness 
of the world up to date. Respect for the existing 
system of rights, however, imperfect as it is, is the 
prime condition of obtaining a better system. 

4, Resj^ect the mental liberty of others. Upon 
this rule of justice is founded the right to freedom 
of speech, freedom of the press, and what is called 
the freedom of conscience. Point out the limita- 
tions of these various rights which follow from the 
fact of their universality. 

5, Resjpect the reputation of your fellow-men. 
Refrain from backbiting and slander. Bridle your 
tongue. This undoubtedly is a rule of justice. 
"Who steals my purse steals trash," etc. The re- 
spect of our fellow-men is in itself a source of hap- 
piness and a" moral prop, and, besides, the greatest 
help in achieving the legitimate purposes of life. 
He who has the confidence of others has wings to 
bear him along. He who is suspected for any rea- 
son, true or false, strikes against invisible barriers 
at every step. Nothing is so sensitive as character — 
a mere breath may tarnish it. It is therefore the 
gravest kind of injury to our neighbors to dissem- 
inate damaging rumors, to throw out dark hints 
and suggestions with respect to them, to impugn 



224 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

their motives. But is it not a duty to denounce evil 
and evil-doers and to put the innocent on their guard 
against wolves in sheep's clothing ? Yes, if we are 
sure that our own motives are perfectly disinter- 
ested, that we are not in the least prompted by per- 
sonal spite or prejudice. For if we dislike a person, 
as every one knows, we can not judge him fairly, we 
are prone to attribute to him all manner of evil 
qualities and evil intents which exist only in our own 
jaundiced imagination. Yery often a person against 
whom we had at first conceived a distinct dislike 
proves on nearer acquaintance to be one whom we 
can esteem and even love. We should be warned by 
such experiences to hold our judgments in suspense, 
and not to allow injurious words to pass the lips. 
The vast moral importance of being able to hold 
one's tongue, the golden resources of silence, should 
be emphasized by the teacher. 

A series of lessons on good manners may be in- 
troduced at this point. The ceremonies of social 
intercourse, the various forms in which refined peo- 
ple show their deference for each other, the rule not 
to obtrude self in conversation, and the like, are so 
many illustrations of the respect which we owe to 
the personality of our fellow-men. Good manners 
are the aesthetic counterpart of good morals, and 
the connection between the two can easily be made 
plain. 

6. Speak the truth. Inward truthfulness^'^is a 
self-regarding duty ; social truthfulness is a form of 
justice. Words represent facts. The words we 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 225 

speak to our neighbor are used by him as building- 
stones in the architecture of his daily conduct. We 
have no right to defeat the jiurposes of his life, to 
weaken the dwelling he is erecting, by supplying 
him with worthless building material. 

Upon exactly the same ground is based the duty 
of keeping one's promises, viz., that our fellow-men 
build on our promises. Promises made in a legal 
form are called contracts and can be enforced. 
Promises not made in legal form are equally bind- 
ing from a moral point of view. It should be borne 
in mind, however, that conditional promises are can- 
celed when the stipulated conditions do not oc- 
cur, and, furthermore, that there are certain tacit 
conditions implied in all promises whatsoever. A 
person who has promised to visit a friend on a cer- 
tain day and dies in the interval is not supposed to 
have broken his promise ; nor if any one makes a 
similar promise and a heavy snowstorm should block 
the roads or if he should be confined to his bed by 
sickness is he likely to be accused of breaking his 
promise. The physical possibility of fulfilling 
them is a tacit condition in all promises. It is 
also a tacit condition in all promises that it shall 
be morally possible or consistent with morality 
to keep them. A young man who has promised 
to join a gang of burglars in an attack on a bank 
and who repents at the last moment is morally 
justified in refusing to keep his pledge. His crime 
consisted in having made the promise in the first 

place, not in refusing to fulfill it at the last moment. 
15 



226 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

A person, however, who promises to pay usurious 
interest on a loan of money and who then takes ad 
vantage of the laws against usury to escape payment 
is a double-dyed rogue, for his intention is to cheat, 
and he uses the cloak of virtue as a screen in order 
to cheat wdth impunity. Let the teacher discuss 
the casuistical question whether it is right to keep 
a promise made to robbers — e. g., if we should fall 
into the hands of brigands, and they should make it 
a condition of our release that we shall not betray 
their hiding-place. 

Justice is based on positive respect for the in- 
dividuality of others, but its commands may all be 
expressed in the negative form : Do not kill, do not 
infringe the liberty, the property of others, do not 
slander, do not lie, etc. It is often held, however, 
that there is a positive as well as a negative side to 
justice, and the two sides are respectively expressed 
in the formulas : Neminem laede and suum cuique — 
Hurt no one and give every one his due. Of positive 
or distributive justice we meet with such examples 
as the following : In awarding a prize the jury is 
bound in justice to give the award in favor of the 
most deserving competitor. The head of a depart- 
ment in filling a vacancy is bound in justice to avoid 
favoritism, to promote that one of his subordinates 
who deserves promotion, etc. But it seems to me that 
this distinction is unimportant. Give to each one 
his due is tantamount to Do not deprive any one of 
what is due him. If the prize or the place belongs 
to A we should, by withholding it from him, invade 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 227 

the rights of A as much as if we took money out 
of his purse. The commands are negative, but the 
virtue implied is positive enough, because it de- 
pends on positive respect for human nature. Do 
not infringe upon the sacred territory of another's 
personality is the rule of justice in all cases. 

Charity. — How shall we distinguish charity 
from justice ? It is said that every one is justified 
in claiming from others what belongs to him as a 
matter of right, but that no one can exact charity. 
The characteristic mark of charity is supposed to be 
that it is freely given. But if I happen to be rich 
and can afford to supply the need of another am I 
not morally bound to do so, and has not my indigent 
neighbor a real claim upon me ? Again, it has been 
said that the term justice is applied to claims which 
are capable of being formulated in general rules and 
imposed alike on all men in their dealings with one 
another, while in the case of charity both the meas- 
ure and the object of it are to be freely determined by 
each one. "We are free, according to this view, to de- 
cide whether a claim upon us exists or not ; but, the 
claim once having been admitted, it is as binding 
upon us as any of the demands of justice. But, 
while this is true, I hold that nevertheless there ex- 
ists a clear distinction between the virtues of justice 
and charity. We owe justice to our equals, charity 
to our inferiors. The word " inferior " is to be un- 
derstood in a carefully limited sense. An employer 
owes his workmen, as a matter of justice, the wages 
he has agreed to pay. Though they may be socially 



228 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

liis inferiors, in regard to this transaction they are 
his equals. They have agreed to render him certain 
services and he has agreed to return them an equiv- 
alent. 

Justice says Do not hinder the development of 
others ; Charity says Assist the development of oth- 
ers. The application of the rule of charity will 
make its meaning clear. 

1. Justice says do not destroy life ; Charity says 
save life. Rescue from the flames the inmates of a 
burning house ; leap into the waves to save a drown- 
ing fellow-creature. Such persons are dependent on 
your help. They are therefore with respect to you 
in an inferior position. 

Discuss with the class the limitations of this 
duty. I am not bound to jump into the water, for 
instance, when I see a person drowning unless I can 
swim. In fact, it would be culpable foolhardiness 
in me to do so. Discuss the following casuistical 
case : A child is lying on the railroad track and 
a locomotive is rapidly approaching. Am I bound 
to make the attempt to draw it away from the track ? 
Does it make any difference whether I am single or 
the father of a family and have others dependent on 
me ? In general, the attempt to save should not be 
made unless there is a distinct chance of succeeding 
without the sacrifice of one's own life ; but we are 
justified in taking great risks, and courage and self- 
reliance are evinced in the degree of risk we are 
willing to take. There are cases, however, in which 
the deliberate sacrifice of one life for another is in 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 229 

the highest degree praiseworthy when, namely, the 
life to be saved is regarded as far more precious 
than our own. Instance the soldier who intercepts 
the thrust which is aimed at the life of his general. 
Instance the parent who in the Johnstown flood was 
seen to push his child to a place of safety and was 
then swept away by the current. 

2. Assist the needy. This may be done by giv- 
ing bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, 
shelter to the homeless, by caring for the sick, ad- 
vancing loans to those who are struggling toward self- 
support, etc. The rule of charity is based on respect 
for the personality of others. We are required to 
assist those who are too weak to hold their own, with 
a view of putting them on their feet again. The aim 
of all charity should be to make those who are de- 
pendent on it independent of it. From this point of 
view all mere almsgiving, all that so-called charity 
which only serves to make the dependent classes more 
dependent, stands condemned. But the true test of 
charity, upon which the greatest stress should be laid, 
is to be found in the way it reacts upon the charitable 
themselves. Right relations, whatever their nature, 
are always mutually beneficial. Does the deed of 
charity react beneficially on the doer? is the test 
question to be asked in every instance. Take the 
case of a person who gives large sums to the poor 
in the hope of seeing his name favorably mentioned 
in the newspapers. The motive in this case is van- 
ity, and the effect of this spurious sort of charity is 
to increase the vanity of the donor. The reaction 



230 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

upon him, therefore, is morally harmful. Again, 
take the case of a person who gives capriciously, at 
the bidding of impulse, without considering whether 
his gifts are likely to be of lasting benefit to the re- 
cipients. He is confirmed in his habit of yielding 
to impulse, and the reaction is likewise morally in- 
jurious. On the other hand, the retroactive effects 
of true charity are most beneficial. In the first place, 
a reaction will take place in the direction of greater 
simplicity in our own lives. A person can not be 
seriously and deeply interested in the condition of 
the poor, can not truly realize the hardships which 
they suffer, without being moved to cut off superflu- 
ous expenditure. Secondly, true charity will teach 
lis to enter into the problems of others, often so un- 
like our own ; to put ourselves in their places ; to 
consider how we should act in their circumstances ; 
to fight their battles for them ; and by this means 
our moral experience will be enlarged, and from 
being one, we become, as it were, many men. True 
charity will also draw closer the bond of fellowship 
between the poor and us, for we shall often discover 
virtues in them which we do not possess ourselves ; 
and sometimes, at least, we shall have occasion to 
look up with a kind of awe to those whom we are 
aiding. In connection with the discussion of char- 
ity, let the teacher relate the biographies of John 
Howard, Sister Dora, Florence Nightingale, Eliza- 
beth Fry, and others, who have been distinguished 
for their devotion to the suffering. 

3. Cheer up the sad. Explain that a bright smile 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. . 231 

may often have the value of an act of charity. In 
general, emphasize the duty of suppressing irritabil- 
ity, ill humor, and moodiness, and of contributing 
to the sunshine of our households.* 

4. Console the hereaved. The afflicted are for 
the moment weak and dependent ; it is the office of 
loving charity to make them independent. Here 
the same train of reasoning is applicable as above in 
the case of the poor. It serves no useful purpose 
merely to sit down by the side of the sorrowful and 
to weep with them. They do need sympathy, but 
they also need, at least after the first paroxysms of 
grief have subsided, to be roused. 

The true cure for suffering is action. Those who 
suffer need to be nerved to action ; they need to be 
shown, above all, the new duties which their situa- 
tion entails. He who can point out to them the way 
of duty, and can give them of his own strength to 
walk in that way, is their best friend — he is the true 
consoler. 

5, I have yet to speak of mental charity and of 
moral charity. Mental charity is practiced by the 
wise teacher, who puts his pupils on the road to 
knowledge, who helps them to discover their true 
vocation, and who, when they are involved in doubt 
and difficulty, succeeds in giving them the clew by 

* For the teacher I add point 4. The duties mentioned under 
5 and 6 may be practiced in a simple way by the young in the 
form of aiding their backward schoolmates, and observing the 
right attitude toward those of their companions who are in 
disgrace. 



232 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

which they can lind an exit into mental clearness 
and light. 

6. Moral charity is practiced by those who bend 
down to the sinful and the fallen, and awaken in 
them a new hope and trust in the good and in them- 
selves. The charity which effects moral regenera- 
tion is perhaps the highest type of all, and of this 
I know no more fitting nor more sublime example 
than the dealing of Jesus with the outcasts of society. 

Note. — Without attempting to forestall further philosophi- 
cal analysis, we may perhaps assume, as a working hypothesis, 
as a provisional principle of deduction in ethics, the principle 
of organization. The individual is an organ of humanity. It is 
his duty to discharge, as perfectly as possible, his special func- 
tions ; hence the need of insisting on respect for individuality 
throughout. Even the self-regarding duties would have no mean- 
ing were not the complex whole in view, in the economy of which 
each member is required to perform his part. As in every organ- 
ism, so in this, each separate organ serves, and is served in turn 
by all the others, and can attain its highest development only 
through this constant interaction. To complete the thought, it 
would be necessary to add that certain organs are more closely 
connected than others, and form lesser organisms within and 
subservient to the whole. This, however, is merely thrown out 
as a suggestion addressed to the student of ethics. 

The Duty of Gratitude. — Upon this subject 
much might be said, did not the fact that the time 
at our command is nearly exhausted warn us to use 
even greater brevity than heretofore in dealing 
with the topics that remain. To bring out the 
right relations between benefactor and beneficiary, 
let the teacher put the question. Why is it wrong 
to cast up the benefits we have conferred to the 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 233 

one who has received them ? And why, on the 
other hand, is it so base in the latter to show him- 
self ungrateful. The reason is to be found in the 
respect due to the personality of others, to which 
we have so often alluded. Kant says that every 
human being is to be treated as an end in himself, 
and not merely as a means or a tool. In effect, the 
person who ignores benefits says to his benefactor : 
You are my tool. It is unnecessary for me to recog- 
nize your services, because you are not an independ- 
ent person to be respected, but a creature to be made 
use of at pleasure. Ingratitude is a slur on the 
moral personality of others. On the other hand, he 
who casts up benefits practically says you have for- 
feited your independence through the favors you 
have accepted. I have made your personality tribu- 
tary to mine. 

An excellent rule is that of Seneca. The bene- 
factor should immediately forget what he has given ; 
the beneficiary should always remember what he has 
received. True gratitude is based on the sense of 
our moral fellowship with others. The gifts re- 
ceived and returned are mere tokens of this noble 
relationship (as all gifts should be). You have just 
given to me. I will presently give to you twice as 
much again, or half as much, it matters not which, 
when occasion arises. We will further eacli other's 
aims as best we can, for the ends of each are sacred 
to the other. 

Duties to Servants. — Having spoken of the 
duties which we owe to all men, I may here refer to 



234 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

certain special duties, such as tlie duties toward 
servants. These may also be introduced in connec- 
tion with the duties of the family, after the filial 
and fraternal duties have been considered. I have 
space only to mention the following points : 

1. Servants are laborers. The same respect is 
due to them as to all other laborers. 

2. They are not only laborers, but in a special 
sense helpers. They are members of the household 
in a subordinate capacity, and in many cases iden- 
tify themselves closely with the interests of the 
family. They are, as it were, lay brothers and lay 
sisters of the family. From these considerations 
may be deduced the duties which we owe toward 
servants. 

Duties with eegard to Animals. — I can not 
admit that we have duties toward animals. We can 
not very well speak of duties toward creatures on 
which we in part subsist ; but there are duties with 
respect to animals. Man is a rational being, and as 
such takes a natural delight in that orderly arrange- 
ment and interdependence of parts which are the 
visible counterpart of the rational principle in his 
own nature. We ought not to step on or heedlessly 
crush under our feet even a single flower. Much 
less should we ruthlessly destroy the more perfect 
organism which we see in animals. Add to this 
that animals are sentient creatures, and that the 
useless infliction of pain tends to develop cruelty 
in us. As a practical means of fostering kind- 
ness toward animals, I suggest the following : Get 



DUTIES TOWARD ALL MEN. 235 

your pupils interested in the habits of animals. 
Familiarity in this case will breed sympathy. Speak 
of the building instincts of bees ; of the curious 
structures raised by those wonderful engineers, the 
beavers. Give prominence to the love for their 
young by which the brute creation is brought into 
closer connection with the human family. Mention 
especially the fidelity which some animals show 
toward man (the saving of human lives by St. Ber- 
nard dogs, etc.), and the uses which we derive from 
the various members of the animal creation. As to 
the fact that we use animals for our sustenance, the 
highest point of view to take, I think, is this, that 
man is, so to speak, the crucible in which all the 
utilities of nature are refined to higher spiritual 
uses. Man puts the whole of nature under contribu- 
tion to serve his purposes. He takes trees from 
the forest in order to build his house, and to fashion 
the table at which he takes his meals ; he brings 
up metal from the depths of the earth and con- 
verts it into tools ; he takes clay and forms it 
into vessels. He also is permitted to pluck flowers 
wherewith to garnish his feasts, and to make them 
the tokens of his love; and in the same manner 
he may actually absorb the life of the lower ani- 
mals, in order to transform and transfigure it, as it 
were, into that higher life which is possible only in 
human society. But it follows that he is a mere 
parasite and an interloper in nature, unless he actu- 
ally leads the truly human life. 



XV. 
THE ELEMENTS OF CIVIC DUTY. 

It should be tlie aim of the school not only to 
connect the system of school duties with the duties 
of the previous period, but also to prepare the pu- 
pils morally for the period which follows. The 
school is the intermediate link between life in the 
family and life in society and the state. The course 
of moral instruction, therefore, culminates for the 
present in the chapter on civic duties. Needless to 
say that at this stage the subject can be considered 
in its elements only. 

The claims of the state upon the moral attach- 
ment of the citizen can hardly be presented too 
warmly. Life in the state as well as in the family 
is indispensable to the full development of character. 
Man, in his progress from childhood to old age, 
passes successively through ever-widening circles of 
duty, and new moral horizons open upon him as he 
grows out of one into the other. One of the largest 
of these circles, and, in respect to moral opportuni- 
ties, one of the richest and most glorious, is the 
state. It may be said that the whole state exists 
ideally in every true citizen, or, what amounts 
to the same, that the true citizen embraces the in- 
terests of the state, as if they were his own, and 

(236; 



THE ELEMENTS OF CIVIC DUTY. 237 

acts from the point of view of the total body politic. 
Increased breadth of view and elevation of purpose 
are the moral benefits which accrue to every one 
who even honestly attempts to be a citizen in this 
sense. 

Much attention is paid in some schools to the 
machinery of our government. The pupils are ex- 
pected to learn the exact functions of mayors, city 
councils, and legislative bodies, the provisions rela- 
tive to the election of the President, etc. But 
while these things ought to be known, they relate, 
after all, only to the externals of government ; and 
it is far more important to familiarize the pupils 
with the animating spirit of political institutions, 
with the great ideas which underlie the state. There 
are especially three political ideas to which I should 
give prominence ; these are, the idea of the suprem- 
acy of the law ; the true idea of punishment ; and 
the idea of nationality. After we have instilled 
these ideas, it will be time enough to dwell with 
greater particularity on the machinery by which it 
is sought to carry them into effect. 

What method shall we use for instilling these 
ideas? The same which modern pedagogy applies 
in every branch of instruction. The rule is, Pro- 
ceed from the known to the unknown ; in intro- 
ducing a new notion, connect it with some analogous 
notion already in the pupil's possession. The 
school offers excellent opportunities for developing 
the two ideas of law and punishment. In every 
school there exists a body of rules and regulations, or 



238 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

school laws. It should be made plain to the scholars 
that these laws are enacted for their own good. 
The government of the school should be made to 
rest as far as possible on the consent and co-opera- 
tion of the governed. That school which does not 
secure on the part of the scholars a willing accept- 
ance of the system of restraints which is necessary 
for the good of the whole, is a failure. In such an 
institution the law-abiding spirit can never be fos- 
tered. 

The play-ground, too, affords a preliminary train- 
ing for future citizenship. On the play-ground the 
scholars learn to select and to obey their own lead- 
ers, to maintain the rules of the game, and to put 
down any infraction of them, whether in the shape 
of violence or fraud. They also learn to defer to 
the will of the majority — a most important lesson, 
especially in democratic communities — and to bear 
defeat good-humoredly.* 

The true idea of punishment should be brought 
home to the scholars through the discipline of the 
school. The ends of punishment are the protection 
of the community and the reformation of the of- 
fender. Nowhere better than in the little common- 
wealth of the school can these moral aspects of pun- 
ishment be impressed ; nowhere better can the foun- 
dation be laid for the changes which are so urgently 
needed in the dealings of the state with the criminal 
class. Everything, of course, depends upon the 

* Vide Dole, "The American Citizen." 



THE ELEMENTS OF CIVIC DUTY. 239 

character of the teacher. His reputation for 
strict justice, the moral earnestness he displays in 
dealing with offenses, his readiness to forbear and 
forgive upon the least sign of genuine repentance — 
these are the means by which he (3an instill right 
notions as to what discipline should be. It has 
been suggested that, when a particularly serious 
case of transgression occurs, the teacher can some- 
times produce a profound moral effect on the class 
by submitting the case to them as a jury and asking 
for their verdict. 

The idea of nationality I regard as fundamental 
in political ethics. There is such a thing as national 
character, national genius, or national individuality. 
"When we think of the Greeks, we think of them as 
pre-eminent for their achievements in art and phi- 
losophy ; of the Hebrews, as the people of the Bible ; 
of the Romans, as the founders of jurisprudence, 
etc. And on turning to the modern nations we find 
that the talents of the English, the Germans, the 
French, the Italians, etc., are no less diversified. 
Morally speaking, it is the mission of each nation in 
correlation with others to contribute to the uni- 
versal work of civilization its own peculiar gifts. 
The state may be regarded as that organization of 
the public life which is designed to develoj> the na- 
tional individuality / to foster the national genius 
in whatever direction it may seek to express itself, 
whether in industry, art, literature, or science ; to 
clarify its aims, and to raise it to the highest pitch 
of beneficent power. 



240 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

Doubtless this idea, as stated, is too abstract 
to be grasped by the young ; but it can be brought 
down to their level in a tangible way. For the 
national genius expresses itself in the national 
history, and more especially is it incorporated in 
those great leaders, who arise at critical periods to 
guide the national development into new channels. 
It is at this point that we realize anew the impor- 
tant support which the teaching of history may give 
to the moral teaching.* Thus the political history 
of the United States, if I may be permitted to use that 
as an illustration of my thought, may be divided into 
three great periods. The struggle with nature oc- 
cupied the earliest period — that of colonization ; in 
this period we see the American man engaged in sub- 
duing a continent. The struggle for political free- 
dom fills the period of the Revolution. The struggle 
for a universal moral idea lends grandeur to our 
civil war. The story of these three great struggles 
should be related with such clearness that the idea 
which dominated each may stand out in relief, and 
with such fervor that the pupils may conceive a 
more ardent love for their country which, at the same 
time that it holds out immeasurable prospects for the 
future, already possesses such glorious traditions. 
There is, however, always a great danger that pa- 
triotism may degenerate into Chauvinism. Against 
this, universal history, when taught in the right spirit, 
is the best antidote. A knowledge of universal his- 

* See remarks on this subject in the third lecture. 



THE ELEMENTS OF CIVIC DUTY. 241 

tory is an admirable check on spurious patriotism. 
In teaching it, it is especially desirable that the con- 
tribution which each nation has made to the progress 
of the world be noted and emphasized. Let the 
teacher speak of the early development of the litera- 
ture and of the inventive spirit of the despised Chi- 
nese ; of the high civilization which once flourished 
on the banks of the Nile ; of the immortal debt we 
owe to Greece and Rome and Judea, Let the young 
be made acquainted with the important services 
which Ireland rendered to European culture in the 
early part of the middle ages. Let them learn, how- 
ever briefly, of the part which France played in the 
overthrow of feudalism, of the wealth of German 
science and literature and philosophy ; let them know 
how much mankind owes to the Parliaments of Eng- 
land, and to the stout heart and strong sense which 
made parliaments possible. It is not by underrating 
others, but by duly estimating and appreciating their 
achievements, that we shall find ourselves challenged 
to bring forth what is best in ourselves. 

There is still another reason why, especially in 
American schools, the teaching of universal his- 
tory should receive far greater attention than hith- 
erto has been accorded to it. The American people 
are imbued with the belief that they have a problem 
to solve for all mankind. They have set out to 
demonstrate in the face of doubt and adverse criti- 
cism the possibility of popular self-government. 
They have thus consecrated their national life to a 

sublime humanitarian idea. And the sense of this 
16 



242 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

consecration, echoing in the utterances of many of 
their leading statesmen, has more or less permeated 
the whole people. But the mission thus assumed, 
like the burden on the shoulders of Christophorus, 
is becoming heavier at every step. The best citizens 
recognize that the problem of popular self-govern- 
ment, so far from being solved, is but beginning to 
disclose itself in all its vast complexity, and they 
realize more than ever how necessary it is to get 
every possible help from the example and experi- 
ence of older nations. The political lessons of the 
past can not indeed be mastered in the public schools. 
But a preliminary interest in European history may 
be created, which will pave the way for profitable 
study later on. 

Furthermore, the American people have ex- 
tended a most liberal invitation to members of other 
nationalities (with few restrictions, and these of re- 
cent origin) to come and join in working out the 
destinies of the new continent. Not only is an asy- 
lum granted to the oppressed — this were the lesser 
boon — but the gates of citizenship have been opened 
wide to the new-comers. What does this mean, if 
not that the foreigners who come, unless indeed 
they belong to the weak and dependent classes, are 
wanted ; and wanted not only in their capacity as 
workers to aid in developing the material resources 
of the country, but as citizens, to help in perfecting 
what is still imperfect, to assist in building up in 
time, on American soil, the true republic. 

In return for this privilege the citizens of for- 



THE ELEMENTS OP CIVIC DUTY. 243 

eign birth owe it to their adopted country to place 
the best of their racial gifts at its service. Much 
that the citizens of foreign birth bring with them, 
indeed, will have to be eliminated, but, on the other 
hand, many of their traits will probably enter as con- 
stituent elements into the national character. The 
Anglo-Saxon race has now the lead, and will doubt- 
less keep it. But in the melting-pot of the American 
commonwealths the elements of many diverse na- 
tionalities are being mixed anew, and a new nation- 
ality distinctively American is likely to be the final 
outcome of the process. Thus both the humanitarian 
ideal and the actual make-up of the people betray a 
cosmopohtan tendency, and it is this tendency which, 
more perhaps than anything else, gives to American 
political life its characteristic physiognomy. If this 
be so, if the foreign elements are so numerous and 
likely to be so infiuential, it is surely important that 
the foreign races, their character and their history, 
be studied and understood. 

Besides explaining the political ideas, I should 
briefly describe the actual functions of government. 
Government protects the life and property of its 
citizens against foreign aggression and violence at 
home. Government maintains the binding force of 
contracts. Government reserves to itself the coin- 
age of money, carries the mails, supports public edu- 
cation, etc. In a word, government assumes those 
functions which can be discharged more satisfactorily 
or more economically by the joint action of the com- 
munity than if left to private individuals or corpora- 



244 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

tions. But government also undertakes the duty of 
protecting the weaker classes against oppression by 
the stronger, as is shown by factory legislation in 
the interest of women and minors. How far this 
function may profitably be extended is open to dis- 
cussion ; but that it has been assumed in all civilized 
countries is a fact which should be noted. 



XVI. 
THE USE OF PEOVERBS AND SPEECHES. 

Foe the use of my classes 1 have made a collec- 
tion of proverbs from the Bible, from Buddha's 
Dhammapada, from the Encheiridion of Epictetus, 
the Imitation of Christ, and other ancient and mod- 
ern sources. Some of these belong to the advanced 
course, others can be used in the grammar course. 
I have time to mention only a few, in order to illus- 
trate the method of using them. 

The habit of committing proverbs or golden 
sayings to memory without a previous analysis of 
their meaning serves no good purpose whatever. 
Proverbs are the condensed expression of the moral 
experience of generations. The teacher should 
search out the experiences to which the proverbs 
refer. Proverbs may be compared to those delicate 
Eastern fabrics which can be folded up into the 
smallest compass, but which, when unfolded, are 
seen to cover a large space. The teacher should ex- 
plore the territory covered by the proverb. Take, 
for example, such a saying as this, " Blessed be he 
who has the good eye." What is the good eye? 
The eye that sees the good in others. Is it easy to 
see the good in others? Yes, if we are fond of 
them ; but if we are not, we are likely to see only 

(245) 



24:6 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

the evil. But suppose there is no good to be seen, 
at least not on the surface ; why, then the good eye 
is that which sees the good beneath the surface, 
which, like the divining-rod, shows where in human 
character gold lies buried, and helps us to penetrate 
to it. But even this does not exhaust the meaning 
of the jDroverb. The good eye is that which, as it 
were, sees the good into others, sends its good influ- 
ence into them, makes them good by believing them 
to be so. The good eye is a creative eye. Or take 
the proverb, "A falsehood is like pebbles in the 
mouth." Why not say a falsehood is like a pebble ? 
No, one falsehood is like many pebbles. For every 
falsehood tends to multiply itself, and each sepa- 
rate falsehood is like a pebble — not like bread, 
which we can assimilate, but like a stone, a for- 
eign body, alien to our nature. Moreover, the 
proverb says, A falsehood is like pebbles in the 
mouth ; which means that these stony falsehoods 
will choke us, choke the better life in us, unless 
we cast them out. Again, take such sayings as 
these from the Dhammapada : " As rain breaks 
through an ill-thatched house, passion will break 
through an unreflecting mind." Explain what kind 
of reflection is needed to keep oS. passion. " He 
who is well subdued may subdue others." Show 
what kind of self-control is meant, and in what sense 
others are to be subdued. " He who holds back anger 
like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver ; other 
people are but holding the reins." " Let a man over- 
come anger by love ; let him overcome evil by good ; 



THE USE OF PROVERBS AND SPEECHES. 247 

let liim overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar 
by truth." Describe the sort of brake by means of 
which the rolling chariot of anger may be checked 
in mid-course, and the efficacy of goodness in over- 
coming evil. From the Encheiridion it occurs to 
me to mention the saying, " Everything has two 
handles : the one by which it can be borne, the other 
by which it can not be borne." Epictetus himself 
gives an illustration : " If your brother acts unjustly 
toward you, do not lay hold of the act by that handle 
wherein he acts unjustly, for that is the handle by 
which it can not be borne; but lay hold of the 
other, that he is your brother, and you will lay hold 
of the thing by that handle by which it can be 
borne." There are also many other illustrations of 
this noble maxim. Disappointment has two handles, 
the one by which it can be borne, the other by M^hich 
it can not. Affliction has two handles. Illustrate 
profusely ; search out the meaning in detail. 

There is a mine of practical wisdom in these 
sayings. There exist proverbs relating to all the 
various duties which have been discussed in our 
course ; proverbs relating to the pursuit of knowl- 
edge ; many and beautiful proverbs on the filial and 
fraternal duties, on courage, on humility, on the im- 
portance of keeping promises, on kindness to ani- 
mals, on the moral end of civil society. Proverbs 
should be classified under their proper heads and 
used as occasion offers. Permit me, however, to 
add one word of caution. It is a mistake to teach 
too many proverbs at a time, to overload the pupil's 



248 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

mind with them. The proverbs selected should be 
brief, pithy, and profoundly significant. But there 
should not be too many at a time. It is better to 
return to the same proverb often, and to penetrate 
deeper into its meaning every time. The value of 
the proverbs is that they serve as pegs in the mem- 
ory, to which long chains of moral reflection can be 
attached. They are guide-posts pointing with their 
short arms to the road of duty ; they are voices of 
mankind uttering impressive warnings, and giving 
clear direction in moments when the promptings of 
self-interest or the mists of passion would be likely 
to lead us astray. 

It may also be well to select a number of speeches 
which embody high moral sentiments, like some of 
the speeches of Isaiah, the speech of Socrates before 
his judges, and others, and, after having explained 
their meaning, to cause them to be recited by the 
pupils. Just as the delivery of patriotic speeches is 
found useful for inculcating patriotic sentiments, so 
such speeches as these will tend to quicken the moral 
sentiments. He who repeats the speech of another 
for the time being puts on the character of the other. 
The sentiments which are uttered by the lips live for 
the moment in the heart, and leave their mark there. 



XVII. 

THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF MOEAL 
TEACHING. 

This subject is of the greatest importance. It 
really requires extended and careful treatment, but a 
few hints must suffice. The teacher should remem- 
ber that he is educating not boys and girls in gen- 
eral, but particular boys and girls, each of whom 
has particular faults needing to be corrected and 
actual or potential virtues to be developed and en- 
couraged. Therefore a conscientious study of the 
character of the pupils is necessary. This consti- 
tutes an additional reason why moral instruction 
should be given in a daily school rather than in a 
Sunday school, the opportunities for the study of 
character being vastly better in the former than 
they can possibly be in the latter. The teacher who 
gives the moral lessons, in undertaking this study, 
should solicit the co-operation of all the other teach- 
ers of the school. He should request from time to 
time from each of his fellow-teachers reports stat- 
ing the good and bad traits observed in each pupil, 
or rather the facts on which the various teachers 
base their estimates of the good and bad qualities 
of the scholars; for the opinions of teachers are 
sometimes unreliable, are sometimes discolored by 

(349) 



250 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

prejudice, while facts tell their own storj. Tliese 
facts should be collated by the moral teacher, and, 
with them as a basis, he may endeavor to work out a 
kind of chart of the character of each of his pupils. 
It goes without saying, that he should also seek the 
co-operation of the parents, for the purpose of dis- 
covering what characteristic traits the pupil displays 
at home ; and if the reputation which a pupil bears 
among his companions, can be ascertained with- 
out undue prying, this, too, will be found of use in 
forming an estimate of his disposition. The teacher 
who knows the special temptations of his pupils will 
have many opportunities, in the course of the moral 
lessons, to give them pertinent warnings and advice, 
without seeming to address them in particular or ex- 
posing their faults to the class. He will also be able 
to exercise a helpful surveillance over their conduct 
in school, and to become in private their friend and 
counselor. Moreover, the material thus collected 
will in time prove serviceable in helping us to a 
more exact knowledge of the different varieties of 
human character — a knowledge which would give 
to the art of ethical training something like a scien- 
tific basis.* 



* See some remarks on types of character in my lecture on 
the Punishment of Children. 



EECAPITULATIOK 

Let us now briefly review the ground we liave 
gone over in the present course. In tlie five in- 
troductory lectures we discussed the problem of 
unsectarian moral teaching, the efficient motives of 
good conduct, the opportunities of moral influence 
in schools, the classification of duties, and the moral 
status of the child on entering school. 

In mapping out the primary course we assumed 
as a starting-point the idea that the child rapidly 
passes through the same stages of evolution through 
which the human race has passed, and hence we 
endeavored to select our material for successive 
epochs in the child's life from the literature of the 
corresponding epochs in the life of the race. 

In regard to the method of instruction, we ob- 
served that in the fairy tales the moral element 
should be touched on incidentally ; that in teaching 
the fables isolated moral qualities should be pre- 
sented in such a way that the pupil may always 
thereafter be able to recognize them; while the 
stories display a number of moral qualities in com- 
bination and have the value of moral pictures. 

In the primary course the object has been to 
train the moral perceptions ; in the grammar course, 
to work out moral concepts and to formulate rules 
of conduct. The method of getting at these rules 
may again be described as follows : Begin with some 

(251) 



252 MORAL INSTRUCTION OP CHILDREN. 

concrete case, suggest a rule which apparently fits 
that case or really fits it, adduce other cases which 
the rule does not fit, change the rule, modify it as 
often as necessary, until it has been brought into 
such shape that it will fit every case you can think of. 

In planning the lessons on duty which make up 
the subject matter of the grammar course, we took 
the ground that each period of life has its specific 
duties, that in each period there is one paramount 
duty around which the others may be grouped, and 
that each new system of duties should embrace and 
absorb the preceding one. 

It remains for me to add that the illustrations 
which I have used in the grammar course are in- 
tended merely to serve as specimens, and by no 
means to exclude the use of different illustrative 
matter which the teacher may find more suitable. 
Furthermore, I desire to express the hope that it 
may be possible, without too much difficulty, to 
eliminate whatever subjective conceptions may be 
found to have crept into these lessons, and that, due 
deduction having been made, there may remain a 
substratum of objective truth which all can accept. 
It should be remembered that these lectures are not 
intended to take the place of a text-book, but to 
serve as a guide to the teacher in preparing his 
lessons. 

I hope hereafter to continue the work which has 
thus been begun. In the advanced course, which 
is to follow the present one, we shall have to recon- 
sider from a higher point of view many of the sub- 



RECAPITULATION. 253 

jects already treated, and in addition to take np 
such topics as the ethics of the professions, the ethics 
of friendship, conjugal ethics, etc., which have here 
been omitted. 

I shall also attempt to indicate the lines for a 
systematic study of biographies, and to laj^ out a 
course of selected readings from the best ethical 
literature of ancient and modern times. 



APPEKDIX. 



(255) 



APPENDIX. 



THE INFLUENCE OP MANUAL TEAININQ ON 
CHARACTER.* 

Ma;n'UAL training has recently been suggested 
as one of the means of combating the criminal tend- 
ency in the young, and this suggestion is being re- 
ceived with increasing favor. But until now the 
theory of manual training has hardly begun to be 
worked out. The confidence which is expressed in it 
is based, for the most part, on unclassified experience. 
But experience without theory is altogether insufii- 
cient. Theory, it is true, without experience is with- 
out feet to stand. But experience without the guiding 
and directing help of theory is without eyes to see. 
I shall now offer, in a somewhat tentative way, a few 
remarks intended to be a contribution to the philos- 
ophy of manual training as applied to the reforma- 
tion of delinquent children. I shall confine myself, 
however, to one type of criminality in children — a not 
uncommon type — that of moral deterioration arising 
from weakness of the will. 

In the first place, let us distinguish between feel- 

*An address delivered before the National Conference of 
Charities and Correction, at Buffalo, July, 1888. 

IV (257) 



258 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

ing, desiring, and willing. A person who is without 
food feels hunger. A person who, being hungry, calls 
up in his mind images of food, will experience a desire. 
A person who adopts means to obtain food performs 
an act of the will. A Kussian prisoner in Siberia who 
suifers from the restraints of confinement is in a state 
of feeling. The same person, when he recalls images 
of home and friends, is in a state of desire ; but when 
he sets about adopting the means to effect his escape, 
concerts signals with his fellow-prisoners, under- 
mines the walls of his dungeon, etc., he is perform- 
ing acts of the will. Permit me to call particular 
attention to the fact that the will is characterized at 
its birth by the intellectual factor which enters into 
it ; for the calculation of means to ends is an intel- 
lectual process, and every conscious act of volition 
involves such a process. If the will is thus character- 
ized at its birth, we can at once anticipate the con- 
clusion that any will will be strong in proportion 
as the intellectual factor in it predominates. It was 
said by one of the speakers that " an ounce of affection 
is better than a ton of intellect." Give me a proper 
mixture of the two. Give me at least an ounce of intel- 
lect together with an ounce of affection. There is great 
danger lest we exaggerate the importance of the emo- 
tions for morality. The opinion is widely entertained 
that good feeling, kind feeling, loving feeling, is the 
whole of morality, or, at least, the essential factor in 
it. But this opinion is surely erroneous. The will 
may be compared to the power which propels a 
ship through the waves. Feeling is the rudder. The 
intellect is the helmsman. 



THE INFLUENCE OF MANUAL TRAINING. 259 

Let me give illustrations to bring into view the 
characteristics of a strong and of a weak will. Great 
inventors, great statesmen, great reformers, illustrate 
strength of will. We note in them especially tenacity 
of purpose and a marvelous faculty for adjusting and 
readjusting means to ends. Persons who are swayed 
by the sensual appetites illustrate weakness of will. 
We note in them vacillation of purpose, and the 
power of adjusting means to ends only in its rudiment- 
ary form. The ideas of virtue are complex. No one 
can illustrate virtue on a high plane unless he is 
capable of holding in mind long trains and complex 
groups of ideas. The lowest vices, on the other 
hand, are distinguished by the circumstance that 
the ends to which they look are simple, and the 
means employed often of the crudest kind. Thus, 
suppose that a person of weak will is hungry. He 
knows that gold will buy food. He adopts the readi- 
est way to get gold. Incapable of that long, and com- 
plex method of attaining his end, which is exhibited, 
for instance, by the farmer who breaks the soil, plants 
the corn, watches his crops, and systematizes his labors 
from the year's beginning to its end, he takes the 
shortest road toward the possession of gold — he 
stretches forth his hand and takes it where he finds it. 
The man of weak will, who has a grudge against his 
rival, is not capable of putting forth a sustained 
and complex series of efforts toward obtaining satis- 
faction, for instance, by laboring arduously to outstrip 
his rival. He is, furthermore, incapable of those 
larger considerations, those complex groups of ideas 
relating to society and its permanent interests, which 



260 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

check the angry passions in the educated. He gives 
free and immediate rein to the passion as it rises. He 
takes the readiest means of getting satisfaction : he 
draws tlie knife and kills. The man of weak will, 
who burns with sensual desire, assaults the object of 
his desire. The virtues depend in no small degree on 
the power of serial and complex thinking. Those 
vices which are due to weakness of will are character- 
ized by the crudeness of the aim and the crudeness 
of the means. 

To strengthen the will, therefore, it is necessary to 
give to the person of weak will the power to think 
connectedly, and especially to reach an end by long 
and complex trains of means. 

Let us pause here for a moment to elucidate this 
point by briefly considering a type of criminality which 
is familiar to all guardians of delinquent children. 
This type is marked by a group of salient traits, which 
may be roughly described as follows : Mental incoher- 
ency is the first. The thoughts of the child are, as it 
were, slippery, tending to glide past one another 
without mutual attachments. A second trait is indo- 
lence. A third, deficiency in the sense of shame ; to 
which may be added that the severest punishments 
fail to act as deterrents. 

Mental incoherency is the leading trait, and supplies 
the key for the understanding of the others. Lack of 
connectedness between ideas is the radical defect. 
Each idea, as it rises, becomes an impulse, and takes 
effect to the full limit of its suggestions. A kind 
thought rises in the mind of such a child, and issues 
in a demonstrative impulse of affection. Shortly 



THE INFLUENCE OF MANUAL TRAINING. 261 

after, a cruel thought may rise in the mind of 
the same child ; and the cruel thought will, in like 
manner, take effect in a cruel act. Children answer- 
ing to this type are alternately kind, affectionate, and 
cruel. The child's indolence is due to the same cause 
— lack of connectedness between ideas. It is incapa- 
ble of sustained effort, because every task implies the 
ability to pass from one idea to related ideas. The 
child is deficient in shame, because the sense of shame 
depends on a vivid realization of the idea of self. The 
idea of self, however, is a complex idea, which is not 
distinctly and clearly present to such a child. Lastly, 
the most severe punishments fail to act as deterrents 
for the same reason. The two impressions left in the 
mind, " I did a wrong," " I suffered a pain," lie apart. 
The memory of one does not excite the recollection of 
the other. The thought of the wrong does not lift 
permanently into consciousness the thought of the 
pain which followed. The punishment, as we say, is 
quickly forgotten. If, therefore, we wish to remedy a 
deep-seated defect of this kind, if we wish to cure a 
weak will, in such and all similar cases we must seek 
to establish a closer connection between the child's 
ideas. 

The question may now be asked, Why should we 
not utilize to this end the ordinary studies of the 
school curriculum — history, geography, arithmetic, 
etc. ? All of these branches exercise and develop the 
faculty of serial and complex thinking. Any sum in 
multiplication gives a training of this kind. Let the 
task be to multiply a multiplicand of four figures by a 
multiplier of three. First the child must multiply 



262 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

every figure in the multiplicand by the units of the 
multiplier and write down the result; then by the 
tens, and then by the hundreds, and combine these 
results. Here is a lesson in combination, in serial, and, 
for a young child, somewhat complex thinking. Let 
the task be to bound the State of New Yoi'k. The child 
must see the mental picture of the State in its relation 
to other States and parts of States, to lakes and rivers 
and mountains — a complex group of ideas. Or, let 
it be required to give a brief account of the American 
Eevolution. Here is a whole series of events, each 
depending on the preceding ones. Why, then, may 
we not content ourselves with utilizing the ordinary 
studies of the school curriculum? There are two 
reasons. 

First, because history, geography, and arithmetic 
are not, as a rule, interesting to young children, 
especially not to young children of the class with 
which we are now dealing. These listless minds are 
not easily roused to an interest in abstractions. 
Secondly, it is a notorious fact that intellectual culture, 
pure and simpk, is quite consistent with weakness of 
the will. A person may have very high intellectual 
attainments, and yet be morally deficient. I need 
hardly warn my reflective hearers that, when em- 
phasizing the importance for the will of intellectual 
culture, I had in mind the intellectual process as 
applied to acts. To cultivate the intellect in its own 
sphere of contemplation and abstraction, apart from 
action, may leave the will precisely as feeble as it was 
before. 

And now, all that has been said thus far con- 



THE INFLUENCE OF MANUAL TRAINING. 263 

verges upon the point that has been in view from the 
beginning — the importance of manual training as an 
element in disciplining the will. Manual training 
fulfills the conditions I have just alluded to. It is 
interesting to the young, as history, geography, and 
arithmetic often are not. Precisely those pupils who 
take the least interest or show the least aptitude for 
literary study are often the most proficient in the 
workshop and the modeling-room. Nature has not 
left these neglected children without beautiful com- 
pensations. If they are deficient in intellectual 
power, they are all the more capable of being de- 
veloped on their active side. Thus, manual training 
fulfills the one essential condition — it is interesting. 
It also fulfills the second. By manual training we 
cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. 
Manual training consists of a series of actions which 
are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. 
Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of 
a wooden box. The first point to be gained is to 
attract the attention of the pupil to the task. A 
wooden box is interesting to a child, hence this first 
point will be gained. Lethargy is overcome, atten- 
tion is aroused. Next, it is important to keep the 
attention fixed on the task : thus only can tenacity 
of purpose be cultivated. Manual training enables us 
to keep the attention of the child fixed upon the 
object of study, because the latter is concrete. 
Furthermore, the variety of occupations which enter 
into the making of the box constantly refreshes this 
interest after it has once been started. The wood 
must be sawed to line. The boards must be carefully 



264 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

planed and smoothed. The joints must be accurately 
worked out and fitted. The lid must be attached 
with hinges. The box must be painted or varnished. 
Here is a sequence of means leading to an end, a se- 
ries of operations all pointing to a final object to be 
gained, to be created. Again, each of these means 
becomes in turn and for the time being a secondary 
end ; and the pupil thus learns, in an elementary way, 
the lesson of subordinating minor ends to a major 
end. And, when finally the task is done, when the 
box stands before the boy's eyes a complete whole, a 
serviceable thing, sightly to the eyes, well adaj^ted to 
its uses, with what a glow of triumph does he con- 
template his work ! The pleasure of achievement now 
comes in to crown his labor ; and this sense of 
achievement, in connection with the work done, 
leaves in his mind a pleasant after-taste, which will 
stimulate him to similar work in the future. The 
child that has once acquired, in connection with the 
making of a box, the habits just described, has begun 
to master the secret of a strong will, and will be able 
to apply the same habits in other directions and on 
other occasions. 

Or let the task be an artistic one. And let me 
here say that manual training is incomplete unless it 
covers art training. Many otherwise excellent and 
interesting experiments in manual training fail to 
give satisfaction because they do not include this 
element. The useful must flower into the beautiful, 
to be in the highest sense useful. Nor is it necessary 
to remind those who have given attention to the 
subject of education how important is the influence of 



THE INFLUENCE OF MANUAL TRAINING. 265 

the beautiful is in refining the sentiments and elevating 
the nature of the young. Let the task, then, be to 
model a leaf, a vase, a hand, a head. Here again we 
behold the same advantages as in the making of the 
box. The object is concrete, and therefore suitable 
for minds incapable of grasping abstractions. The 
object can be constantly kept before the pupil's eyes. 
There is gradual approximation toward completeness, 
and at last that glow of triumph ! What child is not 
happy if he has produced something tangible, some- 
thing that is the outgrowth of his own activity, espe- 
cially if it be something which is charming to every 
beholder ? 

And now let me briefly summarize certain con- 
clusions to which reflection has led me in regard to 
the subject of" manual training in reformatory institu- 
tions. Manual training should be introduced into 
every reformatory. In New York city we have tested 
a system of work-shop lessons for children between six 
and fourteen. There is, I am persuaded, no reason 
why manual training should not be applied to the 
youngest children in reformatories. Manual training 
should always include art training. The labor of the 
children of reformatories should never be let to contract- 
ors. I heartily agree with what was said on that sub- 
ject this morning. The pupils of reformatories should 
never make heads of pins or the ninetieth fraction of 
a shoe. Let there be no machine work. Let the pu- 
pils turn out complete articles, for only thus can the 
full intellectual and moral benefits of manual training 
be reaped. Agriculture, wherever the opportunities 
are favorable, offers, on the whole, the same ad van- 



266 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

tages as manual training, and should be employed if 
possible, in connection with it. 

I have thus far attempted to show how the will 
can be made strong. But a strong will is not neces- 
sarily a good will. It is true, there are influences in 
manual training, as it has been described, which are 
favorable to a virtuous disposition. Squareness in 
things is not without relation to squareness in action 
and in thinking. A child that has learned to be exact 
— that is, truthful — in his work will be predisposed to 
be scrupulous and truthful in his speech, in his 
thought, in his acts. The refining and elevating in- 
influence of artistic work I have already mentioned. 
But, along with and over and above all these influ- 
ences, I need hardly say to you that, in the remarks 
which I have offered this evening, I have all along 
taken for granted the continued application of those 
tried and excellent methods which prevail in our best 
reformatories. I have taken for granted that isolation 
from society, which shuts out temptation ; that routine 
of institutional life, which induces regularity of habit ; 
that strict surveillance of the whole body of inmates 
and of every individual, which prevents excesses of 
the passions, and therefore starves them into disuse. 
I have taken for granted the cultivation of the emo- 
tions, the importance of which I am the last to under- 
value. I have taken for granted the influence of good 
example, good literature, good music, poetry, and re- 
ligion. All I have intended to urge is that between good 
feeling and the realization of good feeling there exists, 
in persons whose will-power is weak, a hiatus, and that 
manual training is admirably adapted to fill that hiatus. 



THE INFLUENCE OP MANUAL TRAINING. 267 

There is another advantage to be noted in connec- 
tion with manual training — namely, that it develops 
the property sense. What, after all, apart from arti- 
ficial social convention, is the foundation of the right 
of property ? On what basis does it rest ? I have a 
proprietary right in my own thoughts. I have a right 
to follow my tastes in the adornment of my person 
and my house. I have a right to the whole sphere of 
my individuality, my selfhood ; and I have a right in 
tilings so far as I use them to express my personality. 
The child that has made a wooden box has put a part 
of himself into the making of that box — his thought, 
his patience, his skill, his toil — and therefore the child 
feels that that box is in a certain sense his own. And 
as only those who have the sense of ownership are like- 
ly to respect the right of ownership in others, we may 
by manual training cultivate the property sense of the 
child ; and this, in the case of the delinquent child, 
it will be admitted, is no small advantage. 

I have confined myself till now to speaking of the 
importance of manual training in its influence on the 
character of delinquent children. I wish to add a few 
words touching the influence'l^f manual training on 
character in general, and its importance for children 
of all classes of society. I need not here speak of the 
value of manual training to the artisan class. That 
has been amply demonstrated of late by the many 
technical and art scliools which the leading manu- 
facturing nations of Europe have established and are 
establishing. I need not speak of the value of manual 
training to the future surgeon, dentist, scientist, and 
to all those who require deftness of hand in the pur- 



268 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

suit of tlieir vocations. But I do wish to speak of the 
vahie of manual training to the future lawyer and 
clergyman, and to all those who will perhaps never be 
called ujjon to labor with their hands. Precisely be- 
cause they will not labor with their hands is manual 
training so important for them — in the interest of an 
all-round culture — in order that they may not be en- 
tirely crippled on one side of their nature. The Greek 
legend says that the giant Antaeus was invincible so 
long as his feet were planted on the solid earth. We 
need to have a care that our civilization shall remain 
planted on the solid earth. There is danger lest it 
may be developed too much into the air — that we may 
become too much separated from those primal sources 
of strength from which mankind has always drawn 
its vitality. The English nobility have deliberately 
adopted hunting as their favorite pastime. They fol- 
low as a matter of physical exercise, in order to keep 
up their physical strength, a pursuit which the savage 
man followed from necessity. The introduction of 
athletics in colleges is a move in the same direction, 
^But it is not sufficient to maintain our physical 
strength, our brute strength, the strength of limb and 
muscle. We must also preserve that spiritualized 
strength which we call skill — the tool-using faculty, 
the power of impressing on matter the stamp of mind. 
And the more machinery takes the place of human 
labor, the more necessary will it be to resort to manual 
training as a means of keeping up skill, precisely as 
we have resorted to athletics as a means of keeping 
up strength. 

There is one word more I have to say in closing. 



THE INB'LUENCB OP MANUAL TRAINING. 269 

Twenty-five years ago, as the recent memories of Get- 
tysburg recall to us, we fought to keep this people a 
united nation. Then was State arrayed against State. 
To-day class is beginning to be arrayed against class. 
The danger is not yet imminent, but it is sufficiently 
great to give us thought. The chief source of the 
danger, I think, lies in this, that the two classes of 
society have become so widely separated by difference 
of interests and pursuits that they no longer fully 
understand one another, and misunderstanding is the 
fruitful source of hatred and dissension. This must not 
continue. The manual laborer must have time and 
opportunity for intellectual improvement. The intel- 
lectual classes, on the other hand, must learn manual 
labor; and this they can best do in early youth, in the 
school, before the differentiation of pursuits has yet 
begun. Our common schools are rightly so named. 
The justification of their support by the State is 
not, I think, as is sometimes argued, that the State 
should give a sufficient education to each voter to en- 
able him at least to read the ballot which he deposits. 
This is but a poor equipment for citizenship at best. 
The justification for the existence of our common 
schools lies rather in the bond of common feeling 
which they create between the different classes of so- 
ciety. And it is this bond of common feeling woven 
in childhood that has kept and must keep us a united 
people. Let manual training, therefore, be introduced 
into the common schools; let the son of the rich man 
learn, side by side with the son of the poor man, to 
labor with his hands; let him thus practically learn 
to respect labor ; let him learn to understand what the 



270 MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. 

dignity of manual labor really means, and the two 
classes of society, united at the root, will never there- 
after entirely grow asunder. 

A short time ago I spent an afternoon with a poet 
whose fame is familiar to all. There was present in 
the company a gentleman of large means, who, in the 
course of conversation, descanted upon the merits of 
the protective system, and spoke in glowing terms of 
the growth of the industries of his State and of the 
immense wealth which is being accumulated in its 
large cities. The aged poet turned to him, and said : 
" That is all very well. I like your industries and 
your factories and your wealth ; but, tell me, do they 
turn out men down your way ? " That is the question 
which we are bound to consider. 7s this civilization 
of ours turning out men — manly men and womanly 
women ? Now, it is a cheering and encouraging 
thought that technical labor, which is the source of 
our material aggrandizement, may also become, when 
employed in the education of the young, the means of 
enlarging their manhood, quickening their intellect, 
and strengthening their character. 



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